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Harvard College’s Office of BGLTQ Student Life staff no longer serve as confidential resources following the office’s dissolution over the summer, narrowing the options available to students who want to discuss sexual harassment or misconduct without notifying the College’s Title IX office.

The Office of BGLTQ Student Life — informally known as the “QuOffice” — employed one full-time staff member and nine student interns who served as confidential resources, meaning they were not mandated by the University to report information that is shared with them about sexual misconduct to a Title IX resource coordinator.

But after the University shut down the QuOffice in July and reorganized its staff under the Harvard Foundation, a center within the newly established Office of Culture and Community, all student employees were laid off from the QuOffice. Von Rohr has since been reassigned as a Harvard Foundation director — a role in which she says she is no longer a confidential resource.

Other confidential resources remain available, including SHARE, Harvard’s team of Sexual Harassment/Assault Resources & Education counselors, as well as University chaplains and the Harvard Ombuds Office.

But former student employees of the Office say the change could make confidential resources for sexual misconduct-related matters more inaccessible for students. Aaryan K. Rawal ’26, who was a QuOffice intern through last spring, said the interns “absolutely had a need to be confidential resources.”

“We had so many students come in and just share things that they otherwise would not have were we not confidential,” Rawal added.

Former QuOffice intern Bea Wall-Feng ’25 wrote in a text message that she “routinely spoke to students” as a confidential resource.

And former assistant director of the QuOffice LaDarius P. Dupree, who was employed at the QuOffice full-time until November 2024, wrote that they were approached by students “several times” to serve as a confidential resource.

A University spokesperson declined to comment.

All employees of the University, including student workers and faculty, are required to report any information disclosed to them by a Harvard affiliate concerning sexual harassment or misconduct to a Title IX resource coordinator.

Once information is shared with a resource coordinator, they will reach out to the student with an invitation to meet, as well as resources and options for how to move forward. This can include implementation of supportive measures, such as housing and academic flexibility, or filing a formal complaint.

Students are not required to respond to the resource coordinator, and disclosing an incident to the Title IX office is not considered a formal complaint, nor does it automatically trigger a formal investigation.

Rawal said the QuOffice also helped students learn about other Title IX resources on campus — and presented a way for students to share sensitive information without fearing it would be brought to administrators.

“Our job really was to make SHARE feel a little bit more approachable and feel a little bit more accessible for the student,” Rawal said. “The whole reason that students were able to trust us with that information was because we were never obligated to report that to anyone else.”

Former QuOffice intern E. Matteo Diaz ’27 said the QuOffice’s visibility as a social space for students made it more accessible than offices students might not ordinarily interact with, but QuOffice interns were also trained on how to refer students to the University’s other Title IX resources.

The QuOffice could be an especially important resource for LGBTQ students who wanted to “talk to people who are versed in understanding your identity, who are going to be kind of culturally sensitive in that way, but also not have the reporting requirements,” said Diaz, a Crimson Editorial editor.

“Gender and sexuality can make issues sensitive and add particular layers to the process of, ‘Do I want to report something or go through a process?’” he said.

He added that a confidential resource who is a student could be more approachable than other University employees, lowering the “barrier to entry.”

“When you’re experiencing a crisis situation, you want someone who you don’t necessarily have to explain all the complexities that come with being a Harvard student,” Rawal said. “We were that for a lot of them.”

The QuOffice interns were the only confidential resources employed by the University who were students. But undergraduate peer counseling groups, whose trained volunteers are not Harvard employees, have never been required to share information with Title IX resource coordinators or the University’s Office for Community Support, Non-Discrimination, Rights and Responsibilities.

Jennifer H. Kim ’26 — the co-director of RESPONSE Peer Counseling, which advises students on relationships and sexual harassment and assault concerns — said that the volume of students seeking confidential counseling has not “significantly increased compared to past semesters” following the closure of the QuOffice.

Kim also said that RESPONSE peer counselors have spoken with their supervisors about the reorganization of resources available to students following the closure of the College’s three diversity offices, but that she does not expect major changes to the resources that RESPONSE refers students to.

Contact and Indigo, undergraduate peer counseling groups that focus on supporting students with issues related to gender and sexuality, also continue to provide confidential counseling services.

—Staff writer Annabel M. Yu can be reached at annabel.yu@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @annabelmyu.

—Staff writer Sheerea X. Yu can be reached at sheerea.yu@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @_shuhree_.