An anonymous Harvard University woman has written a strongly worded op-ed in The Harvard Crimson in response to the university’s mishandling of her alleged rape.
“It’s Me, One of Your Statistics” was published on Thursday by the young woman, who recounted having been sexually assaulted by a male friend and classmate in his dorm room last fall.
“An upperclassman I’d known since Visitas had invited me to his dorm to study for our coming Science of Cooking midterm and watch movies with some of his frat brothers. Of course, I had gone,” she wrote. “But he didn’t let me leave.”
She then explained the way that she says the university failed her in the aftermath of the traumatic assault. “Harvard could not have saved me from that man, and I know that... But Harvard could have helped me afterwards, and they didn’t.”
The University Health Services does not offer rape kits (many universities don’t), and the woman instead took an Uber across town to get one done at a hospital. Once the rape kit verified that she had in fact suffered a sexual assault, she claims that the university took no action whatsoever in keeping the alleged rapist away from her. “They told me that unless I went through the trial process, Harvard was unable to intervene in any meaningful way.”
But she had no interest in that trial process. Like many other campus sexual assault survivors, she felt that it would be long, painful and drawn-out. “Now, every survivor is different,” she wrote. “Some need to seek justice and fire back. But for me? The idea of my attacker seeking retribution was a crippling fear that made me pale at the thought of going through with the grueling trial process.”
The woman wrote that Harvard’s Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (OSAPR) representative said that the shortest trial she’d seen had lasted six months, but could likely be a year long or more ― especially if her rapist had good lawyers. As an upperclassman, though, her rapist would likely graduate before the trial even had an outcome.
So instead of enduring the brutal trial process, she had to endure sharing a classroom with her rapist every Tuesday and Thursday:
I still remember the trauma of seeing him two times a week for the rest of the year. I’m just thankful that my class was a large one, and he could be avoided. Still, the occasional eye contact and smug smiles I received from him were enough to exile me after class, shaking and sobbing, to the Science Center bathrooms.
The op-ed was written in direct response to Harvard University’s recent decision to punish members of exclusive, single-gender Final Clubs.
“Instead of taking steps to help survivors, Harvard started a witch hunt against single-gender organizations under the guise of protecting us,” the woman wrote. “Shutting down the final clubs, sororities, and fraternities on our campus will do almost nothing to help prevent sexual assault.”
She also noted that the vast majority of campus rapes and sexual assaults take place in the university’s dorms. “More than 80 percent of sexual assault happens within Harvard’s own dorms, and yet no steps have been taken to secure those places.”
The survivor had some concrete ideas for what the university could be doing instead:
Let’s start out with some basics: providing rape kits at University Health Services, shortening the length of trial, allowing students to go to class without having to face their attacker, and making dorms more secure. It may not fix everything, but it’s a start.
Read the entire op-ed at The Harvard Crimson here.
Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.
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