A Mid-Semester Evaluation of Assault on Campus: Harvard Fails

In the early days of my freshman fall, I left a friend stunned by a revelation of my 3 a.m. weekday shenanigans. Every other night, I walked down alone from Pennypacker Hall to the CVS at the corner of Mass. Ave and JFK Street — untethered to a can of pepper spray.

He proceeded to ask me if I really felt that safe as a woman in Cambridge — safe enough to warrant a claim to hours beyond midnight and the absence of self defense in my back pocket.

I responded almost defensively. Since childhood, I’ve been accustomed to being catcalled on the street, feigning phone calls in an Uber, and waking up to a new case of curbside assault everyday — despite growing up in one of the safer cities of urban India. Cambridge, then, seemed a world away from the explicit harassment that so characterized my adolescence. After all, I was no longer photographed by men on the street, stared at in public spaces, or cornered in alleyways.

The “I’m safer here than I am there” rationale is arguable, but I continue to subscribe to it. Late into freshman year, I no longer look back home to justify my 3 a.m. pursuits. I only need to look next door — at the statistics of on-campus assault at Harvard. Instances of assault here are far more unnerving than those back home, for the immediacy and familiarity of the perpetrators. I feel no safer in class than I do on Mass. Ave, so I deliberately lay claim to the hours and places I’m cautioned against.

Just as unnerving is the administration’s response to assault. On paper, they demonstrate an awareness of these statistics and an effort to address them: the 2017 split of the Title IX Office, the implementation of mandatory training for faculty and students, the establishment of anonymous disclosure, and an expansion of the coordinator body. But these demonstrations are untenable with what the numbers have to say: very little has changed in the prevalence of on-campus assault and the infrequency of reporting. These two metrics are equally concerning because they are inextricably intertwined in affirming a permissive culture that translates to perceived immunity for perpetrators.

Over the first few weeks of first year orientation, we were introduced to Title IX, safety trainings, and an alcohol awareness module. We ran over the ideas of consent and substance use, and were handed a list of emergency contacts. What I was really looking for in these modules, though, was more than knowing to space out my drinks or go to parties in groups. These measures may be essential, but they’re largely preventive. As women, we needed to make sure we never drank too much and always had a ride back home, because the threats of assault were treated as constants; they would simply continue to exist, and we’d have to work our way around them.

In contrast, we were told nothing about the repercussions for perpetrators, tangible actions guaranteed by the College if we came forward as victims, or the detailed reporting process a victim could expect to work through. Training modules tell us everything about intervention and avoidance, and nothing about consequence or institutional accountability. This approach promulgates a dangerous culture. As students enter our institution, they are told that their responsibility on campus is to protect themselves and those around them. While this responsibility matters, centering the discussion around it at the cost of other conversations glosses over the many members of the Harvard community that have perpetrated assault themselves, implying that these individuals are immune to consequence.

Coupled with the convolutions of reporting mechanisms, it comes as no surprise that some students lack confidence in the existing reporting procedures — and perhaps even fear it — while others assume immunity from consequence. In a report on sexual harassment at Harvard, an external review comittee found “widespread confusion about even the most fundamental aspects of the reporting system,” writing that, “Multiple individuals, for instance, did not know the difference between the Title IX Office and the ODR” — the Office for Dispute Resolution — “or the difference between a disclosure and a formal complaint.”

At its most twisted, this culture transforms into the College’s string of high-profile professors who have sexually harassed and assaulted their students for years with little more than a slap on the wrist. Domínguez. Fryer. Makadon. Bestor. Urton. Comaroff. Harvard has shown it does not protect its women — especially when the reputations of powerful men are at stake. Unsurprisingly, the student body has little faith left in the integrity of the University's investigative procedures.

As the average freshman, I know very little about my first point of contact when I feel unsafe, or what I should expect if I ever need to file a formal complaint. For an institution that aggressively solicits detailed course evaluations twice a semester, I shouldn’t need to defer to writing an op-ed to communicate that.

If Harvard is truly committed to addressing its climate of sexual harassment, measures need to move beyond online education modules and prevention training. Assault must be addressed at the heart of the institution’s culture: a restructuring of administrative priorities, a guarantee of action and protection for survivors that come forward, and an emphasis on institutional and individual accountability. As the administration acknowledges its problematic past and identifies where it fails its students, it needs to place more weight on the experiences of individuals most impacted by it.

It shouldn’t be easier to navigate the College’s sexual harassment policies as a perpetrator than as a survivor. I shouldn’t feel safer during my nightly unguarded CVS runs than I do on campus.

Sasha Agarwal ’25, a Crimson Editorial editor, lives in Pennypacker Hall.

This piece is a part of a focus on Women’s History Month.