Victims are often motivated to keep their stories private out of a sense of personal “responsibility” that can accompany a sexual assault, Rankin says.

For example, Doan says the victim may feel partially at fault for drinking too much, wearing provocative clothing, or going out alone at night.

“It can feel very hard to...do something that will jeopardize [the assailant’s] future and their career at Harvard for an event that [the victim] feels is partially their fault,” Rankin says.

She adds that one of OSAPR’s goals is to counteract this self-blame.

The reluctance to affect the assailant’s future is exacerbated by the fact that the offender is someone the victim knows in approximately 90 percent of college sexual assault cases, according to statistics provided by OSAPR.

Doan says the assailant is often a close friend or romantic interest of the victim, which further complicates the victim-assailant paradigm.

The hesitancy to permanently affect the assailant’s future is more “acute” at Harvard, Ellison says, because Harvard students “see the degree as such a significant thing.”

THE VICTIM’S CHOICE

As students cite many reasons for not sharing their stories, Rankin says that it is important not to push them to formally report their experiences if they are uncomfortable doing so, even if their cases would likely result in an Ad Board sanction of the offender.

“After something like this, the last thing you need is people kind of pushing you around and telling you how to handle it,” she says.

Though Ellison agrees that administrators and specialists should remain non-directive, he says it is “regrettable” that students miss the opportunity to obtain administrative support by not coming forward, noting that the dearth of reported cases relates to misconceptions about the Ad Board.

“The process will be difficult, but not as difficult and horrible as they expect it to be,” Ellison says, adding that Ad Board members do their best to make the process as painless as possible for the victim while still accomplishing their task.

“In my opinion, the process is as well-constructed, humane, and supportive as it can possibly be” given the circumstances, Marine says.

Despite the numerous obstacles victims face after being sexually assaulted, administrators say they strive to improve the process and to encourage more victims to come forward.

“I wish that every student that had an encounter that was non-consensual would at least come talk to me so they could make the decision informed [about the Ad Board],” Ellison says. “My hope would be the result of that would be we’d get more cases.”

—Staff writer Melody Y. Hu can be reached at melodyhu@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Eric P. Newcomer can be reached at newcomer@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Alice E.M. Underwood can be reached at aeunderw@fas.harvard.edu.