Lewis Requests Changes In Sex Assault Policy

Citing the Administrative Board’s poor record of resolving sexual assault allegations, Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68 recommended in his annual report on the College that the Board more carefully consider whether it will be able to act in certain cases.

Starting in September, the Board will evaluate sexual assault cases earlier to determine whether an investigation is likely to result in a resolution.

Currently, the Ad Board immediately begins an investigation after gathering statements from the complainant, the alleged assailant, and any witnesses, according to David B. Fithian, associate dean of the college and secretary of the Ad Board. The investigation can last up to two or three months.

“At the end of many of these cases, one wonders what has been accomplished,” Lewis said.

The problem came to Lewis’s attention this year because an unusually large number of sexual assault cases—seven in all—were brought before the Ad Board in 2000-2001, a dramatic increase from the two that were investigated in 1999-2000.

Out of these seven cases, two alleged assailants received a scratch, a non-fault finding. No action was taken against four and one was required to withdraw for the second—but not final—time.

The low rate of succesful resolutions is mostly due to the “he-said-she-said” nature of many of the complaints, Lewis writes in the report.

Lewis said the Ad Board’s difficulty in reaching a resolution in a majority of these cases stems from their lack of investigative tools available to the criminal court.

“I want to encourage women to take cases to the criminal justice system where something can be done,” Lewis said in an interview Friday. “We don’t have forensic laboratories, we don’t have subpoenas.”

Lewis said he thinks avoiding the long disciplinary investigation in these cases will benefit both the alleged victim and alleged assailant.

“It’s not a matter we’re taking up because we think the problem is unfair to one party or the other—it’s unfair to both,” Lewis said. “It’s not a help to the victim to go through a lengthy and very, very wrenching process only to find the Board isn’t going to be able to come to a conclusion.”

But Fithian said the new measure should not be taken to mean that the College is washing its hands of sexual assault cases.

“We’re worried it will be misperceived as the College somehow not wanting to get involved in these cases and that couldn’t be further from the truth,” Fithian said.

Fithian said the Faculty Council voted recently on a faculty committee recommendation to ask the Ad Board to review complaints before proceeding automatically to an investigation.

“In the past, we almost always went forward [with an investigation], which in a sense gave complainants a false hope that we’d be able to take action,” Fithian said. “Many people, at the end of a lengthy investigation, were stunned that we couldn’t take action; they assumed that since the case went ahead that we would.”

Sarah B. Levit-Shore ’03, a member of the Coalition Against Sexual Violence, said that she supports any change that makes the Ad Board a less difficult process for victims of assault. However, she said she is worried that the Ad Board seems to be giving up on its power to discipline alleged assailants.

“In the silver lining it’s good that they’re recognizing that deans who often aren’t trained with dealing with sexual assault cases may not be the best place to bring a sexual assault case,” Levit-Shore said. “But it’s something that takes place on a college campus so it seems like a natural thing for the college disciplinary committee to deal with.”

In the past, the Ad Board has sometimes been overwhelmed by cases and found it difficult to staff the investigative subcommittees, according to Fithian.

Since the Ad Board will limit the number of sexual cases it considers, Fithian said he hopes the Ad Board will never be understaffed.

A note about the policy change will be placed in the 2002-2003 edition of “The Administrative Board of Harvard College: A Guide for Students.”

—Staff Writer Anne K. Kofol can be reached at kofol@fas.harvard.edu.