Take Stats at Face Value
I was disturbed by a point made in "Nearly Half of Harvard Students Binge Drink" (News, Feb. 5). In a paragraph explaining how much better Harvard students are at dealing with the effects of binge drinking, the article said that "only seven students out of 353 surveyed said they had sex while too drunk to consent."
While seven certainly sounds like a small number, applying that percentage to the larger community would result in approximately 127 undergraduate students having been in a situation that Harvard policy defines as rape. Furthermore, since 58 percent of survey respondents were men, it would not be unreasonable to suspect that the survey underestimated the actual percentage.
Thus, while Harvard might have a rate of rape due to binge drinking lower than the national average--the reporter does not provide national statistics--we have more than enough to worry about.
Elizabeth A. Thornberry '03
Feb. 5, 2001