Community Clout Does Not Excuse Violence

To the editors:

I sincerely hope that the arrest of Kirkland House resident tutor Brian M. Lawrence (News, “House Tutor Arrested for Assault,” Dec. 6) was indeed not an incident of domestic violence, as Kirkland House Master Tom Conley believes. What concerns me in the article is Conley’s lighthearted reaction. Conley stated that the incident “was much ado about nothing” and called the incident “a moment of early evening stress.” While this may be true, the description mirrors many other examples of domestic violence: the victim calls the police, but later retracts the report, calling the incident a “misunderstanding” or saying that the partner “never meant to hurt anyone.” These retractions, however, do not make the violence any less real; in fact, retractions are often made out of fear of further retaliation by the abuser.

Furthermore, Conley attempts to brush off the incident by appealing to the “wonderful contributions” of the couple to the House. However, this furthers stereotypes that “nice people” do not experience (or cause) domestic violence. Domestic violence affects families both rich and poor, educated and non-educated; even the nicest-seeming person can in reality be a perpetrator of violence. Unfortunately, batterers are often forgiven and incidents of domestic violence are ignored because batterers seem like “nice” individuals or are well-respected in their communities.

Brushing off incidents of domestic violence does not make them less real; our reactions to these incidents, however, indicate how seriously we take domestic violence as a crime. I do not mean to accuse Lawrence of domestic abuse, as I have no firsthand knowledge of the incident. However, I would urge Conley and the Harvard community to seriously consider the implications of the light reaction to such an incident.

Domestic violence affects millions of people in our country, and Harvard is not immune; there are many Harvard students who come from families in which domestic violence is a frightening reality or who are involved in abusive relationships themselves. I hope that Harvard will continue to treat all incidents of violence, whether sexual assault, battery or domestic violence, as the serious crimes that they are and not turn a blind eye when incidents of violence occur in our community.

Betty C. Luther ’03

Dec. 7, 2002

The writer is a member of the Coalition Against Sexual Violence.