Law Students Discuss Treatment of Rape Law in Criminal Law Courses

Harvard Law School students offered strategies and tips for navigating discussions about rape law in criminal law courses during a workshop event Tuesday. The discussion, hosted by the Women’s Law Association each year as criminal law courses begin covering rape and sexual assault, also explored what they described as myths associated with rape.

Unlike most other criminal law subjects, sexual assault is an issue that law students are more likely to have personally encountered and should be approached with more sensitivity, Lana R. Birbrair, a third-year law student who led the event, said.

“Whatever your views are of what rape law ought to be, the reason that we’re here is because it can be really hard to talk about it,” she said.

In particular, students discussed the possibility of emailing a professor in advance of a discussion on rape law to ask not to be called on during class. They also talked about supporting each other’s contributions during class.

Additionally, the student-led event covered a list of six misconceptions they said were often associated with rape and are present in some class discussions. In particular, students focused on the perception that women often lie about having been raped. Birbrair said that more time is spent discussing false accusations of rape than is spent discussing false accusations of other crimes.

“The way we talk about sexual assault and rape law is just not the same as the way we talk about fraud,” she said.

The workshop follows another recent Law School event on rape law. Last month, in a discussion sponsored by the Women’s Law Association and the Federalist Society, Law School professors Jeannie C. Suk and Andrew M. Crespo ’05 discussed whether or not the subject should even be taught in criminal law classes. While they said that some professors nationwide have stopped teaching rape law because of the sensitive nature of the topic, both Suk and Crespo ultimately advocated for its place in a criminal law curriculum.

Both events come during a time of contention among the Law School faculty about academic freedom and the discussion of subjects like rape law under Harvard’s new University-wide definition of sexual harassment. Law School professors have argued that Harvard’s policy provides insufficient provisions for protecting academic freedom when discussing sensitive topics, leaving professors and other students vulnerable to potential claims of verbal sexual harassment.

—Staff writer Andrew M. Duehren can be reached at andy.duehren@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @aduehren.