Thema Bryant-Davis is gone. For many students, her name may not mean anything, her absence even less. But the woman who served as the director of SHARE, Princeton's Sexual Health/Assault Advising, Resources and Education program, has been sorely missed by those with whom she worked as a counselor, adviser and advocate. As one of the few willing to tackle the issue of sexual violence at Princeton, her departure last August left the SHARE program largely abandoned and led to a semester where little was done to address how such violence affects students, faculty and staff.
SHARE is designed to offer specialized treatment and counseling to those whose lives have been touched by sexual violence. Many at Princeton — male and female — have found that SHARE has provided confidentiality, guidance and support when they or a friend has been affected by sexual violence. The program also coordinates efforts at campus-wide education, including the Sexual Health Advisors, a group of undergraduates who facilitate peer discussions.
Despite the need to carry out these crucial functions, University Health Services did not begin seeking candidates for the position of director until December 15, nearly four months after Bryant-Davis announced her departure. The University wanted to take the time to rethink the role of SHARE. While administrators planned, students suffered.
For most of the semester, students who had been sexually assaulted could not know what they might encounter at the SHARE center. Only a recently graduated student intern, with little training in sexual violence, was on staff. Those who had been in Bryant-Davis's care were reassigned to McCosh's counseling center, and the Sexual Health Advisors were coordinated by students whose dedication exceeded the time they had to take on such a task.
More than once in the past few months, I have sat with a group of friends and wondered what we would do if someone we knew needed help. On a campus that saw 10 sexual offenses in the last academic year, every student should have that information at his fingertips. Every student should be prepared to deal with what we pray will not happen.
Those who run McCosh and coordinate services for the University are well intentioned and concerned with student health and safety. But they are also busy, and that has meant that for many at Princeton, sexual violence is not a priority. It is the kind of thing we do not like to acknowledge happens among our Gothic buildings and our overachieving students. Until the Director of Public Safety changed the reporting policy, a laudable move, the University reported zero sexual offenses among its crime statistics, ignoring the nine to 10 cases brought to SHARE each year.
Even Princeton's internal disciplinary system, the designated individual program, is designed to "mediate" conflicts, according to University policy. The concept of mediating a crime is mind-boggling. We would not ask the victim of a theft or an assault to work out a mutually agreeable resolution with her assailant. Sexual violence is a different crime, but the policy's language, and the complicated web of steps involved in pursuing a complaint, send a clear message to victims: don't bother.
An administrator once told a female student who had been raped that her complaint was simply the result of her own "anger management" issues, according to the student. No wonder so many victims in the past have found a refuge in SHARE and refused to go any further.
There has been little public outcry over the failure to replace Bryant-Davis. Even The Daily Princetonian devoted a mere few lines to her absence, noting only that she was one of many minorities to leave the University and that no one at SHARE was available for comment on a story about Princeton's reporting the second highest number of sexual offenses in the Ivy League. It is easy for us to ignore the need for qualified counselors and fair policies when we are safe, when we do not need them. For those pushing for reform, from leaders of women's groups to Sexual Health Advisors to USG officers, raising the issue of sexual violence often feels like shouting at the wind. As they search for a new SHARE director, University administrators should hear those voices and implement better plans for those times when we do need help, when we must know that there are people to whom we can turn. Katherine Reilly is a Wilson School major from Short Hills. She can be reached at kcreilly@princeton.edu.
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