The Harvard Crimson this week published a first-person account of a student's on-campus sexual assault. The young woman, who wrote the piece in her dining hall seats away from her victimizer, said she lost herself after her attack, largely because of Harvard's inaction.
In her article, the anonymous student lists her attempts to reach out for help: multiple deans, administrators and health officials. She is not alone. In the last couple of years, several undergraduate victims of sexual assault have written open letters, articles and blog posts that draw attention to the magnitude of this crime on and near college campuses nationwide. Tufts is no exception.
The Harvard student references her school's 20-year-old sexual assault policy as the root of some of her problems in bringing her sexual assault to Harvard administrators attention. Fortunately, Tufts' sexual assault policy was recently revised, in September of last year, to clearly define terms. Yet the discrepancy between the clearly defined policy and the difficulties some victims have bringing their attacker to justice points to a fundamental failure in the system.
Tufts not only has a duty to meet these students' needs, but also to stop the on-campus culture that permits sexual assault to happen in the first place. Nationally, 13.7 percent of college-aged women and seven percent of men are victims of at least once instance of sexual assault while in college. Tufts has a responsibility to make our campus safer.
This April, Sexual Assault Awareness Month, is a better time than any for Tufts to listen. The Harvard student may have felt that she lost her voice in the face of administrators in Cambridge. But on our hill in Medford and Somerville, let's become a megaphone for victims' voices. Tonight's "It Happens Here" event should be the beginning of a movement. The Daily welcomes submissions from those on campus looking for an outlet to share their perspectives, as John Kelly eloquently exemplifies in his Op-Ed today.
While the current revision of the Sexual Misconduct Policy marks a step in the right direction, the Tufts administration cannot stop fighting for its victimized students. It happens here, and it needs to be stopped. Neither Tufts administrators nor Tufts students can do it alone - both must make a concerted effort to work together to disavow the campus culture that allows sexual assault to continue. Tufts, like Harvard, must persist in finding viable, functional and effective ways to prevent and treat sexual assault cases.
