Clubs, Classes, Houses: When Survivors of Sexual Assault Can’t Avoid Their Assaulters
Imagine this: You are the president of a Harvard student organization, and a member approaches you after being assaulted by someone else in the club. They don’t want to go to Title IX, but they don’t want to see the person who had harmed them.
You know they’re telling the truth. You want to ensure they can remain in the club. But if they don’t want to go to Title IX — or they do and their investigation drags on — there’s little you can do.
Many student leaders at Harvard have faced this situation or something like it. Without a finding from an official investigation, universities cannot punish or sanction students under federal Title IX rules. This can limit the kinds of supportive measures available to students who have experienced harm — restricting an accused student’s engagement with a club, for example, could constitute a punishment.
The Title IX Process is Like a Trial. Many Survivors Navigate it Alone.
After Riley K. Sutherland was harassed by multiple professors at the University of South Carolina, she filed a Title IX complaint. The ensuing investigation was “one of the most harrowing challenges” she’d ever experienced, lasting for three years.
“It was like having a full-time job on top of my classes,” Sutherland wrote in a message. She was thrust into the weeds of the process, tasked with making statements, undergoing interviews, adhering to deadlines, and presenting evidence on her own.
The process was beyond burdensome — “every step of the way, I struggled with panic attacks and chronic illness flares caused by trauma.”
How Harvard Killed Its Best Title IX Resource
“You are not alone” reads a sticker stuck on the door of the Lamont Library bathroom stall. At first glance, the purple rectangle offers a helpful list of resources for people who have experienced sexual assault, with phone numbers for Harvard University Health Services, peer counseling, and Harvard University Police.
There’s only one problem: The first organization, the Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response, no longer exists.
Three years ago, then-Provost Alan M. Garber ’76 announced the merger of Title IX and OSAPR into the Office for Gender Equity, which comprises Title IX and a new, confidential resource called Sexual Harassment/Assault Resource Education, or SHARE.