--- title: Harvard Student's Sexual Assault Essay Goes Viral description: A student alleges that the school discouraged her from pursuing charges, which meant she had to continue living in the same dorm as her attacker canonical: https://time.com/44456/harvard-student-school-made-me-live-with-attacker-after-sex-assault/ author: Charlotte Alter article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-04-01T00:42:24.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:55:05.108Z og:title: Harvard Student's Sexual Assault Essay Goes Viral og:description: A student alleges that the school discouraged her from pursuing charges, which meant she had to continue living in the same dorm as her attacker og:url: https://time.com/44456/harvard-student-school-made-me-live-with-attacker-after-sex-assault/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Harvard Student's Sexual Assault Essay Goes Viral twitter:description: A student alleges that the school discouraged her from pursuing charges, which meant she had to continue living in the same dorm as her attacker twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Harvard Student: School Made Me Live With Attacker After Sex Assault > Sponsored content. 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It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters.  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent Apr 1, 2014 12:42 AM UTC  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent Apr 1, 2014 12:42 AM UTC A sexual assault survivor alleged that Harvard University administrators discouraged her from pressing charges and forced her to continue living in close quarters with her attacker in an anonymous essay published Monday in the _Harvard Crimson._ The student first describes the incident: --- > “” --- The student then [writes](http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/3/31/Harvard-sexual-assault/?page=single) that she was discouraged from seeking charges against her alleged attacker because her assault didn’t fit the narrow language of Harvard’s student handbook. --- > “” --- The article has already been widely shared in the Harvard community and beyond as an example of yet another sexual assault that has been allegedly mishandled by campus authorities. The White House recently announced a task force to end sexual assault on campuses, as other top universities such as [Dartmouth](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/14/dartmouth-sexual-assault-petition%5Fn%5F4964875.html),[ Wesleyan](http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/14/justice/wesleyan-university-rape-lawsuit/) and[ Amherst](http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/11/16/students-file-federal-complaint-against-amherst-college-alleging-mishandling-sexual-assaults/cxRn6t3sWaGKOVBK3hbg5N/story.html) are also struggling to address a growing demand for administrative action to protect sexual assault victims. Grace Mahoney, a Harvard student in the class of 2014 who works with Harvard’s CAARE program (Consent, Assault Awareness and Relationship Experts) placed the blame on Harvard’s campus culture. “There’s a lot in the culture that’s very male-dominant,” she said, adding that tough academic standards pressure students to put on a brave face. “There’s definitely a culture of braving it and just toughing it out and everything’s fine,” she said. “And sexual assault comes part and parcel with that.” Numerous calls made by TIME to multiple Harvard resident deans were not returned. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/44456/harvard-student-school-made-me-live-with-attacker-after-sex-assault/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/44456/harvard-student-school-made-me-live-with-attacker-after-sex-assault/"},"headline":"Harvard Student: School Made Me Live With Attacker After Sex Assault","datePublished":"2014-04-01T00:42:24.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:55:05.108Z","description":"A student alleges that the school discouraged her from pursuing charges, which meant she had to continue living in the same dorm as her attacker","url":"https://time.com/44456/harvard-student-school-made-me-live-with-attacker-after-sex-assault/","keywords":["Living","Sexual Assault","Harvard","dartmouth"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Charlotte Alter","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/44456/harvard-student-school-made-me-live-with-attacker-after-sex-assault/","name":"Harvard Student: School Made Me Live With Attacker After Sex Assault"}}]}] ```