Brina Milikowsky '00

In the space of a few weeks, a largely unorganized and inactive group, the Coalition Against Sexual Violence, had rallied supporters around a call for awareness and action. Their red buttons, proclaiming that "Rape Happens at Harvard," were soon seen on backpacks and coat lapels across campus.

"It's been a tremendously exciting semester," says Brina Milikowsky '00, co-coordinator of the coalition.

"It's kind of unfathomable how it's all unraveled," she adds of her group's semester of activism in favor of improved women's services at Harvard.

Following a quiet first year during which the group studied Harvard's resources for victims of sexual assault in comparison to those at other schools, the coalition has become a central force in campus politics during the past semester.

The catalyst was an article in the February 1999 issue of Perspective featuring interviews with two Harvard victims of rape. The women spoke out about their experiences for the first time. One of the victims criticized Harvard for taking rape too lightly, since both of the victims' alleged attackers--Joshua M. Elster and D. Drew Douglas, both Class of 2000--had not been expelled from Harvard. This revelation sparked the coalition to action.

"In a matter of a few weeks, we were talking with national press," says Milikowsky. Several weeks later, the Rally for Justice was held, attracting national press and several hundred demonstrators outside University Hall, as the Faculty voted to dismiss Douglas inside. Milikowsky was a featured speaker at the rally. Since then, the coalition has had several meetings with Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 and other members of the administration.

"The coalition is really satisfied with the shift in consciousness on campus," Milikowsky says. "We've made a lot of progress this semester."

Milikowsky, a self-described "Boston kid" who lives in Brookline, says it has been a struggle to get the Harvard administration to listen and to accept responsibility for sexual assaults on campus.

"It's an area no one [among administrators] knows anything about," she says.

But administrators have begun to respond to the issue because of the coalition's work this semester, according to Milikowsky. "Many more Faculty members have expressed interest in forming committees with students," and the administration recently met two of the coalition's eight demands by agreeing to improve Sexual Assault Sexual Harassment (SASH) training and to make minor reforms to first-year orientation to sexual assault and rape issues.

"The realization that we need to sit down and talk about this is great," but there's no guarantee that the administrators understand, Milikowsky says. "Convincing them that these issues need to be addressed is a tremendous feat, but we have our work cut out for us."

Milikowsky is both cautious and encouraged by the April 20 announcement of the Harvard-Radcliffe merger. She says she hopes Harvard will finally take responsibility for female students.

"A lot of female undergraduates are suddenly feeling threatened" by the demise of Radcliffe, she says, because many Harvard women depend on Radcliffe services and programs.

"Any further detachment from those resources frightens a lot of undergraduates," says Milikowsky.

The junior Social Studies concentrator says she is glad to have been able to work closely with the 15 to 20 core members of the coalition this semester, even though the amount of time she has been able to devote to studying has dwindled as a result.

"Once you get in [to it], you can't get out," she says of their activism. "The energy was just thriving and was addictive."

Although Milikowsky will be far from the front this summer while she works as a researcher-writer for Let's Go in Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Belgium, she says the coalition plans to continue its work in the fall. The group plans to work on instituting mandatory first-year outreaches during Orientation Week for future entering classes, to continue raising awareness on campus and to work towards a women's center that would provide vital services.

"That's a very long-term project," she says. This summer, several interns will lay the groundwork for the center. "No one expects any of this stuff to change while we're here," says Milikowsky, who will take next semester off to get some "space" away from Harvard before she embarks on her thesis.

Nevertheless, "it's incredibly gratifying to see how much has changed," she says.