When Sarah B. Levit-Shore ’04 talks about red tape, she cannot help but get excited—waving her hands for emphasis and speeding up her speech.

Levit-Shore, a leader of Coalition Against Sexual Violence, often admiringly notes how during a campaign by a group of Columbia students three years ago to get better resources for sexual assault victims, students wore red tape on their backpacks to symbolize the bureaucratic red tape they felt was impeding change.

Such a protest movement would not be out of place at Harvard, Levit-Shore contends.

And she is not the only student on campus who believes there is a problem with Harvard sexual assault policy.

More than 56 percent of undergraduates surveyed by The Crimson this past weekend said they think the Administrative Board handles sexual assault cases poorly. More than 70 percent of the 408 students polled said they have a poor understanding of how the Ad Board handles sexual assault.

Sixty-two percent said they think there should be more education about sexual violence and just over a quarter said they would not know whom to call if they were sexually assaulted.

But Levit-Shore has no plans to slap red tape on her backpack any time soon.

Instead of focusing on putting public pressure on administrators, she has decided to work quietly within the bounds of two enormous bureaucracies—Harvard and the federal government.

The coalition is in the process of preparing an application for a $200,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice. The money is earmarked annually by the government for combatting violence against women on college campuses.

Levit-Shore has the backing of the Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS) and more than 20 new members of the coalition, which has traditionally been a very small group of female activists.

But new members may not help Levit-Shore and coalition veterans in completing the massive application—which exceeds 50 pages—and in rallying skeptical administrators to the cause.

Ultimately, the coalition’s application will succeed or fail not only with the approval of the Department of Justice’s Violence Against Women Office, but also with that of Harvard’s powers-that-be. The government stipulates that applications for the grant must come from Massachusetts universities—not from student groups.

And though the coalition has a significant ally in Diane Rosenfeld, a fellow at Harvard Law School who was instrumental in pushing through the 1994 legislation that made the grant a possibility, some administrators are unsure there is enough time to complete all the necessary requirements.

But Levit-Shore remains optimistic that the coalition can gain the approval of Harvard’s top administrators and the cooperation of multiple University bodies in time to apply for the grant, which is due on April 30.

Race Against the Clock