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Today’s release of the report of the Committee to Address Sexual Assault at Harvard (CASAH) marks an important milestone in the effort to prevent sexual assault on campus. The recommendation to create an Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response, the call for increased education and training services for students and staff and the focus on coordination of services—as advocated in this space over the last two days—are extremely promising signs. On Monday, this space will feature a full review of the CASAH report. But today we will address...
...Board—currently responsible for deciding cases of sexual assault—is mainly comprised of senior tutors and assistant deans of the College who have no training, education or background in either sexual assault or specialized methods for investigating it. Over the years, numerous calls have been made to train the members of the board about sexual assault, but the refrain that the board’s members are “too busy” has been constant. Today’s call by CASAH’s to train Ad Board members in peer-to-peer...
...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?...
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...
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...