Jul 09, 2014 01:44 PM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

Based on results from a newly released survey, several colleges and universities in the U.S. are not investigating reports of sexual assault on campus.

According to the Huffington Post, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), hair of the Subcommittee on Financial and Contracting Oversight, released the results of her survey Wednesday. 40 percent of the survey respondents said they have not investigated an report of sexual assault in the last five years.

McCaskill sent the extensive survey to 350 schools in the U.S. in April and the subcommittee reportedly received 236 responses. Among the schools that said they had not investigated a sexual assault case in five years, six percent were large public universities.

Another revelation from the survey was that some 20 percent of investigations involving a student-athlete were given oversight to the school's athletic department. This practice was also determined to be more common in schools with Division II and III athletic programs than those in Division I.

McCaskill told the HP this occurrence "is probably just something that has been allowed to exist because no one was paying close attention."

"On some campuses athletic departments are the most powerful entity," she said. "I intend on asking the head of NCAA about it this afternoon."

Under the Clery Act, colleges and universities are required to publicly disclose all reported campus crimes and Title IX bans sexual discrimination. Of the survey respondents, nine percent said they conducted less sexual misconduct crimes than were on their Clery Report.

Alongside Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), McCaskill reportedly plans to roll out new legislation to address sexual assault on college campuses in either Aug. or Sept. The group of senators expects the legislation to receive bipartisan support.

McCaskill and the subcommittee are also declining to release responses to the survey in order to encourage institutions to be candid in their feedback.

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