About 250 students marched for sexual violence awareness throughout and around the campus Tuesday night as part of the Take Back the Night walk, sponsored by Maryland Hillel and CARE to Stop Violence.
University Police temporarily closed off Route 1 Tuesday night as about 250 students marched for sexual violence awareness throughout and around the campus.
“Take back the night,” yelled one stopped driver on Route 1 as the students crossed, echoing the message the crowds were chanting. The students clapped and cheered in response.
Students marched Tuesday as part of a Take Back the Night walk sponsored by Maryland Hillel and CARE to Stop Violence in the hopes of educating students about sexual abuse, its prevalence and what should be done about it.
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Participants walked from the stairs in front of McKeldin Library, behind the Memorial Chapel and around Fraternity Row, finishing at Ritchie Coliseum, where survivors and supporters told stories of sexual assault.
Rachel Novick and Andrea Picciotto, members of the Tzedek Hillel Fellowship — a social justice group within Maryland Hillel — put the event into motion about three weeks ago after hearing about the large turnout at similar events on other college campuses. They said they hoped to reproduce that level of involvement in College Park.
“I want to make sure people know, and that people at the university handle things correctly,” said Novick, a junior physiology and neurobiology major.
Ashley Rivas, a senior anthropology major, is a survivor of sexual abuse. She said it is important that survivors be able to speak about their experiences, despite how taboo it might seem.
“It’s nice for people who have actually experienced it to know that they’re not alone and that there’s a lot of other people here who have gone through the same thing,” Rivas said.
When students arrived at the walk, they were given a glow stick to wear and an electric candle to carry.
“These are pretty much like a symbol, we’re taking back the night, we’re shining our light, we’re walking as a community,” said Picciotto, a junior hearing and speech sciences major.
The marchers stopped behind the Memorial Chapel as organizers spoke through a loudspeaker, relaying statistics about sexual abuse and their hopes for how the campus will approach it in the future.
“Today, one in four women will be sexually assaulted on college campuses, and that’s not OK,” Novick said.
Student Government Association President Patrick Ronk attended the event and emphasized the importance of in-person training throughout college, especially at freshman orientation.
“We don’t tell them not to rape each other, or to look out for their friends if a bad situation is happening, and that’s unacceptable,” Ronk said.
The event was co-sponsored by the SGA, the Office of Multi-Ethnic Student Education, Maryland Images, Sigma Delta Tau sorority and Delta Tau Delta fraternity.
Peter Bradley, a senior criminology and criminal justice major and president of Delta Tau Delta, said about 65 members of the fraternity attended the event.
“We thought there was no better way to get our hands dirty, participate in an event like this, really promote it, try to get it big and try get other people involved around campus on it,” Bradley said.
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The group eventually reached Ritchie Coliseum to listen to a volunteer survivor from RAINN — the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network — and a representative of CHANA, a Jewish group for people who have experienced abuse.
After they spoke, several men and women came forward to relay their own stories of sexual abuse that they have experienced or heard about.
Though Novick and Picciotto only started working on the event a few weeks ago, they said they can’t see themselves stopping the advocacy.
The first way they plan to continue what began Tuesday is by screening the film Standing Silent, a documentary about a Jewish journalist fighting against his community to expose sexual molestation. The screening will take place Dec. 1 at Maryland Hillel.
“We want this to be a continuous conversation and continuous change,” Novick said.
