Date Rape Happens at Harvard

Date rape happens at Harvard, and with alarmingly more frequency than the University acknowledges, the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) discloses or the undergraduate community hardly ever pauses to contemplate. There were two undergraduate date rapes during the month of November alone. That total, however, only represents the number of date rapes reported to HUPD.

The Harvard community is left to guess at how many other sexual assaults have taken place within the Houses and Yard dormitories that will never be named or investigated, and will forever remain an unspoken unjustified wrong. These other rapes did not have to be violent, dramatic, or to have taken place under unfamiliar, uncomfortable circumstances. They merely had to have been an involuntary penetration of any orifice, by a person the victim knew beforehand. Date rape, in fact, a phenomena only first most common type of sexual assault. A court of law, however, makes no distinction between rape and date rape.

We can never possibly know how many rapes actually take place within Harvard's undergraduate community but the opportunities for such a crime are profuse. The variables in the equation6500 young adults, unprecedented unsupervised sleeping arrangements, alcohol and drugs such as Special K and Rohypinol--all too easily add up to conditions in which rape can almost effortlessly result.

Whereas rapes most certainly result, however, the reporting of them does not. Many victims respond with denial, self-hate, utter shock and chagrin or, most destructive, self-blame. Their last instinct is to phone the authorities and seek immediate justice and reconciliation. As such, the College and HUPD understandably feel relieved when victims of sexual assault come forward and bravely report their experience. This is, after all, the only mode through which such criminal transgressions can be pursued, accounted for, analyzed and hopefully prevented.

Even so, most important is that the victim find a way to cope with the rape. Undergraduate-operated peer counseling services such as Room 13, Contact and Response can not only refer rape victims to professionally-trained services, but they also provide victims with an often needed core of concerned, yet anonymous, listeners. Harvard itself also offers counseling services through the University's Mental Health Services and the Bureau of Study Counsel.

When victims do seek retribution, they face two disparate avenues with which to persecute their attacker: the Administrative Board or HUPD. Victims of sexual assaults within the Harvard community should unequivocally seek the support, guidance and assistance of HUPD rather than that of the College.

The police handle rape well, and for myriad reasons. The most obvious being that this type of criminal investigation is all that the police department does. They are a law enforcement body charged with the responsibility to uphold and sustain criminal laws and to investigate, pursue and detain all who violate this code. The Ad Board, in contrast, is composed of individuals who split their time between administration and discipline within the College. An Ad Board member could conceivably spend his entire day grappling with the overcrowded Houses and then shut down his computer and rush off to a 4 p.m. meeting at Hilles where he promptly votes to dismiss a rapist from school. HUPD is in a position to devote as much attention and care to a sexual assault investigation as necessary for the uninterrupted, undisturbed benefit of the victim.

The realm of the Ad Board, a sphere never explicitly defined to Harvard undergraduates, should be within the realm of academics and related concerns. This is where a band of College administrators and Faculty should remain. The Ad Board should have nothing even tangentially relating to the domain of a criminal activity as serious, consequential and destructive as rape. In fact, because it is not a recognized legal body, the Ad Board does not have access to results of hospital-administered rape tests. Ad Board investigations are thus a drawn-out series of statements between the accused rapist and the victim. Professionals, namely the trained and qualified police department, should clearly supervise and conduct criminal investigations as weighty as those of rape.

Some victims of date rape, however, still opt to persecute their sexual offenders through the Ad Board. Granted, there are reasons that justify such a decision: First, the Ad Board is a surefire way to keep any information about the sexual assault from the newspapers and the public eye. The Ad Board mystique, by far its most frustrating and enigmatic aspect, ensures an anonymity to all parties involved in a sexual assault. Addressing the rape through the Ad Board is also a means of keeping a tender, sensitive issue within the Harvard-extended family. Recognizing the positive results that arise from addressing a rape and carrying through with the investigation taxes and drains the emotional well-being of a sexual assault victim. And the capacity to pursue such an arduous process is undeniably exacerbated when the offender is a personal acquaintance, friend or even romantic companion. Addressing the issue within Harvard's ivy-clad walls and under the auspices of the formal Ad Board procures a sense of security that justice is not only being addressed, but in a way that ensures that the least number of people suffer in the process.

That sense of security is false, however, and could not possibly hold up to the lasting punishment that would have been awarded had the rape investigation been conducted by HUPD rather than a computer science professor. Ad Board criminal convictions have no permanence or durability. Rapists leave Harvard only to return and eventually graduate with the same diploma and same clean police record as any other student. In contrast, police department criminal convictions stick, and rightfully so. A formal legal conviction would taint any job application and mar the history of any adult who has committed a sexual offense. Rapists would not have a vine of ivy behind which they could seek refuge.

At last night's Days of Dialogue discussion on rape and sexual assault at Harvard, a HUPD officer eloquently explained the Ad Boards Catch-22. He described the process as a tool that is as good or as bad as it gets used.

The University's best interest will always be in the University. It would be antithetical for the Ad Board to function otherwise. But there is one sacrifice that Harvard can--and should--make to its reputation that would work to the benefit of its community: Acknowledge that rape happens at Harvard and release information disclosing the crime and punishment, but not the names of those involved. That way, the Ad Board can sustain its badge of anonymity while still addressing and finally confronting an epidemic that preys upon the Harvard campus.

Jordana R. Lewis 02 is a history and literature concentrator in Eliot House. Her column appears on alternate Thursdays.