Students Against Violence Take a Stand, Refuse to Be Silenced

October 25, 2007

By Lateshia Beachum, Communications Intern

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and during this time many college campuses hold events to bring attention to sexual assault and dating violence. Overcoming fear and intimidation to speak out is an important part of breaking the cycle of violence.

This year, sexual assault survivors and their advocates at the University of Maryland-College Park decided that they would not be silenced by the school administration.

The school banned from the campus Clothesline Project any t-shirt that included the full name of an alleged assailant. Fear of potential lawsuits from the named perpetrators led to the school's decision.

Whatever fear the administration had did not dissuade the members of Student Advocates For Education about Rape (SAFER). "We decided we're not going to stand for that," said SAFER student advocate Khalifah Hawkins. Hawkins and other SAFER students held a peaceful protest next to the Clothesline Project on Oct. 11 by displaying the banned t-shirts and encouraging students to sign a petition calling on the school to include all t-shirts in the project.

Silence was not an option for student organizers. "I've already been raped once. I don't need it to happen to me again by having the administration trying to silence me," said a SAFER student advocate.

Staff of the school's Office of the Victim Advocate (OVA) was also in attendance. OVA students sat in the middle of the courtyard, surrounded by approved shirts, providing information about sexual violence, harassment and stalking, as well as volunteer information.

"I was going to wear one of the shirts," said OVA peer advocate and fraternity leader A.J. Arrese. He was asked by one of the survivors to wear her shirt with the name of a football player on it if the shirt could not be displayed.

Arrese wasn't the only man on campus involved in the effort to stop violence against women. SAFER advocate Jessica George said that plenty of fraternities had their rushes come out and set up the t-shirts on clotheslines. "I just think it's good to have these guys know that it's [rape] not okay from the start," said George.

Fraternities can have a big impact on the problem of sexual assault on college campuses, both negative and positive. Being part of the solution is now the goal for many fraternities. The University of Maryland's fraternities banded together to write a letter supporting the organizers of the Clothesline Project and opposing the ban.

Other campus organizations have tried to take legal action against the school by arguing that the ban violates Title IX because of its disproportionate impact on women.

With so much controversy around this year's project, it was not a surprise that an act of vandalism took place. Someone defaced one of the banned t-shirts by writing on it: "Being inappropriate doesn't equal with rape Idiot."

A sense of anger and hurt flooded the air at the event briefly, but SAFER and OVA students weren't deterred from their mission to ensure that every survivor had a voice that day. The t-shirt was going to hang with the rest of the shirts, even if a hole had to be cut in it to remove the damage.

The Clothesline Project takes place on campuses around the country to promote awareness about violence against women. The University of Maryland-College Park has held a Clothesline Project for the past seventeen years. This is the first year that any t-shirts have been banned. The Baltimore Sun reported the speculation of some students that the university took action this year because a shirt which named a prominent former athlete was displayed at last semester's event.