Supporting Assault Survivors

In a survey conducted by The Crimson one year ago this week, 25 percent of students reported that they would not know whom to call if they were sexually assaulted. As the Committee to Address Sexual Assault at Harvard prepares its recommendations about how to improve survivor services, the key principle that they should keep in mind is clarity.

Currently students face an alphabet soup of Harvard agencies to contact: University Health Services (UHS), Harvard University Police Department (HUPD), Bureau of Student Counsel (BSC), Sexual Assault/Sexual Harassment (SASH) tutors, the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center (BARCC), among others.

But while choice and flexibility are important in giving survivors the opportunity to shape their treatment and take the approach that is most comfortable for them, it is also important that students are given a clear direction so that they are not overwhelmed by a complicated web of overlapping agencies.

To this end, the College must establish one centralized office to handle sexual assault—one single number students can call with any sexual violence concern—staffed by professionals who are trained to aid survivors holistically. The newly-created Office of the Director of Sexual Assault Prevention Services needs to take a leading role in constructing this single office to address sexual violence.

An instructive model is Princeton University, where a Sexual Harassment/Assault Advising, Resources, and Education (SHARE) counselor—who is trained in the emotional, medical, legal and psychological aspects of sexual violence and the resources available to students—is on call 24 hours a day at Princeton University Health Services.

In too many cases, Harvard students do not receive enough centralized guidance compared to what is provided at other Ivy League schools. A new office overseeing sexual assault services must be staffed with professionals who can serve as long-term contacts for students—helping them deal with the many areas of their lives that can be devastated by sexual violence. Such advisers should be available to assist survivors in their dozens of needs—helping students receive appropriate mental health services, connecting them with support groups for long-term healing, even transferring them from classes or Houses where survivors might encounter their assailants.

Coupled with a consolidated response office, the University must also strengthen UHS’ handling of assault issues. After hours, the UHS hotline for sexual assault services refers callers to a pager for a general mental health counselor. UHS must have efficient sexual assault staff able to respond to student calls at any time; sexual violence assaults don’t simply stop after business hours.

And while it always has physicians on call to handle assaults, UHS does not provide “rape kit” services. Instead, it refers students to Beth Israel Hospital for this important medical and evidence-gathering function.

UHS cannot perform rape kits on campus because only specialized “Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner” (SANE) nurses have the experience and training to perform rape kits that would be admissible in judicial settings. These nurses are on-call at specific hospitals in Boston who have requested their presence, demonstrated an adequate volume of occurrences and worked to meet other designation requirements. Under the current system, however, only Beth Israel and five other Boston area hospitals are SANE-designated. They share the services of the 18 SANE nurses assigned to the area. But under the state of Massachusetts’ woefully inadequate budgeting and nursing shortage, the SANE program cannot afford to employ any of these nurses full-time. Rather, the program relies on SANE nurses to give 48 hours of practice time to this daunting work per month, often in addition to their regular job as nurses.

Harvard must use its considerable clout and resources to combat this shortage of services—at least until the Commonwealth of Massachusetts starts to take sexual assault service funding seriously. The University should spearhead a consortium of Boston area schools to hire several full-time SANE nurses for the city’s higher education community. Besides benefiting students, the action would help take some of the burden off the already-understaffed statewide program. With area colleges and universities each contributing a portion of the funding, colleges can then make sure that rape kits can be performed at many campus health services and eliminate the burden on students to travel to off-campus emergency rooms.

But in the meantime, the University must continue to improve students’ experiences—even when they do have to have to be referred to off-campus facilities. The student group Response provides its peer counselors as escorts for these students so that at least they don’t have to visit the waiting room alone. Current efforts to offer unmarked HUPD cars—instead of impersonal taxicabs and “transportation vouchers”—as a ride for assaulted students is a step in the right direction.

But beyond the initial response, an expansion of UHS’ mental health services is necessary to better accommodate survivors’ long-term emotional wellbeing. Even with the additional staff added this year, the department is clearly overburdened, and visits with therapists need to be available on a more frequent basis.

While all these services seem like a significant expenditure for the approximately 60 students who may have been sexually assaulted last year, according to estimates extrapolated from the latest UHS survey, these services will surely be in growing demand. As Harvard demonstrates an increased commitment to and support for survivor services, more students will likely feel comfortable coming forward. Students don’t keep sexual assault to themselves because they want to, but rather because the University still has a long way to go toward creating an environment where survivors feel they can get quality care and sincere support.

As recorded—and easily overlooked—in the police log on page five of this issue of The Crimson, another Harvard student was allegedly subjected to an “indecent assault” this weekend. These incidents are ever-present, and each is its own argument for why Harvard must commit to changing its atmosphere and stepping up its commitment to survivor services. The Leaning Committee has a chance to improve the atmosphere on campus and the treatment for those who have suffered sexual trauma. It cannot afford to waste that opportunity.