I just finished replying to a friend today, a lovely and brilliant young woman who was assaulted on the Harvard Campus last year. She has confided in me several times, simply needing someone to listen and to share her deep distress. Despite my encouragement that she speak out, she is too afraid — not only of the man who assaulted her, but of Harvard’s powerful networks and capacity to blackball her, cast her as a troublemaker, ruin her career. I fervently hope for a day in which all women know that their greatest fear is their assailants or silence, not retaliation from the universities at which they study. And for the young men? I wish the same for them, knowing how many young men are allies in ending violence. So yes, needed some Martin Luther King Jr. this sunny Saturday morning.
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