Keycard Policy Blamed for Alleged Assault

An anonymous allegation of sexual assault circulated Saturday via e-mail has reignited the contentious issue of 24-hour universal keycard access (UKA).

Though House Masters and Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68 expressed concern over the e-mail’s charges—which were followed by a challenge to the Masters to institute all-night access—they said it was not at all clear that a change in policy was forthcoming.

“Past discussions of UKA have been very inconclusive on the relation of UKA to safety from sexual assault,” Lewis wrote in an e-mail. “I fear this anonymous e-mail may not be helpful in enlightening [the issue of UKA].”

According to the e-mail, which was entitled “My Story” and sent to a number of House e-mail lists, three males followed a female resident of the Quad on Sept. 18 from outside Adams House to Kirkland House, where they “grabbed my butt” and put their hands “all over me.”

The student claimed that she initially tried to swipe back into Adams to return to the safety of a friend’s party, but since it was just after 1 a.m., she was unable to get back in.

According to the student’s e-mail, she later attempted to enter the Lowell House courtyard but found that the door was locked—a statement that Undergraduate Council President Paul A. Gusmorino ’02 said he found strange.

Gusmorino, a Lowell resident, said the door to the courtyard is supposed to have 24-hour UKA and is rarely closed at all.

Shortly after 1 a.m. this morning, the Lowell door was open. UKA was also functional.

The student—who did not respond to The Crimson’s efforts to contact her—concluded in her e-mail that 24-hour UKA would have prevented the assault and argued that student safety was more important than the interests cited by House Masters to justify ending UKA at 1 a.m.

“I have to believe that protecting my body from rape is more important than a rubber tree plant,” she wrote, referring to the theft of a plant in Quincy House that has been blamed on all-night access to residents of other Houses.

Quincy House is the only House that currently has 24-hour UKA.

Though Masters were not making any promises about reconsidering the current policy, some who read the e-mail over the weekend said they anticipated further discussion of the topic among the Masters.

“I think we’re really going to have to take a careful look,” said Cabot House Master James H. Ware. “This student has certainly highlighted a kind of concern that could arise when people don’t have access.”

Ware added that he thought the UKA issue would be raised at today’s Masters’ docket committee meeting. But Masters continued to cite the usual concerns about UKA—that it would encourage theft, damage the sense of House community and, most of all, compromise student safety.

Eliot House Master Lino Pertile said he would like to see night guards installed at the Houses if 24-hour UKA is instituted.

“We need to protect the students who are inside the House,” Pertile said. “By necessity, the Houses become less closed to unwanted visitors [with 24-hour UKA].”

Pertile and Lewis also questioned why the author of the anonymous e-mail did not use a blue-light Centrex phone to call the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) or later report the incident to HUPD.

“I do hope the person reporting the attack will come forward with information,” Lewis wrote in an e-mail. “The e-mail implies that the community is endangered and the police have not been given the information they need to make it safe.”

Gusmorino agreed that it would have been best for the student to go to the police, but concluded that the story supported students’ longtime claims that all-night UKA would increase student safety.

“A drunken and angry ex-boyfriend might storm up from Winthrop to Pforzheimer in a fit of rage,” Gusmorino said, citing what he says is the Masters’ main hypothetical case that argues against extending UKA hours.

But in Gusmorino’s opinion, the current policy would not keep the angry ex-boyfriend out of the House, but only force him to wait a few minutes for someone to swipe him in.

Gusmorino said he thinks that students, who largely support 24-hour UKA, are the best judges of the program’s safety, noting that the council began arguing for the policy in 1992—before swipe cards were even being used in the Houses.

“Students have been calling for UKA for a decade, because students actually experience being locked out of the Houses,” he said.

—Staff writer David C. Newman can be reached at dnewman@fas.harvard.edu.