Word: rape
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Earlier this week, University Health Services (UHS) released the results of a survey on sexual assault on campus. Although the survey results released so far show much lower incidence of rape than a 1988 national survey of rape on college campuses, we should wait to laud Harvard until the most recent national figures, gathered by the American College Health Association, are available in two weeks. The survey should also remind us that the number of rapes reported to the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) could be far smaller than the number of rapes that occur at Harvard--while only...
...University believes that Harvard is immune to rape and sexual assault. This "it could never happen to me" attitude is apparent in Harvard's abysmally sub-par rape prevention and rape survivor services. No women's center. No mandatory orientation for first-year or upper-class students on sexual assault. No victim's advocacy program. No guarantee of seeing a trained rape counselor or psychologist regularly after experiencing rape. No rape prevention/counseling center. No full-time employee of the College whose job is to raise awareness and decrease occurrence of rape. No professional speaker or workshop during first-year orientation...
This culture of ignorance is pervasive in the student body, as well. I have had long debates with a good friend and blockmate (a self-proclaimed liberal) who shrugs at claims that rape really happens here. Like the administration, he sees occurrences of rape and sexual assault as an unfortunate anomaly rather than a problem with a solution. And he is no exception. Now in my first semester as a peer educator with Peer Relations and Date Rape Education (PRDRE), it has become clear that the shady character stereotype prevails in a very real and insidious way. Though many students...
...choose to admit our mistakes and our failures. We can work with campus organizations like the Coalition Against Sexual Violence, Response and PRDRE, which represent different yet complementary approaches to the problem of rape and sexual assault at Harvard. We can make phone calls and write letters to our deans, senior tutors and SASH advisers. And, perhaps the easiest and most effective thing we can do is talk with each other openly. Even if we are not "too smart" to experience rape--as the statistics reveal--my hope is that we will be smart enough to realize our error...
Stephen N. Smith '02 is a sociology concentrator in Adams House. He is a peer educator with Peer Relations and Date Rape Education and a member of the Coalition Against Sexual Violence...