By Hussein Ali Rifath
Adelphi University’s Title IX office seeks to promote a campus environment free of harassment, violence and discrimination. This year, it’s been committed to creating more programming during month-long observances such as Sexual Assault Awareness Month in April and Domestic Violence Awareness Month in October.
Emily Whearty, who joined Adelphi last year as an assistant Title IX coordinator, worked with campus partners in April to host events in recognition of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, which began in 2001.
Whearty said, “In the 2000s, we really started seeing it build up in college campuses to raise awareness about sexual assault, to increase access to preventive education initiatives and get the word out about what sexual assault means for survivors and allies.”
In collaboration with Public Safety, the Title IX and Student Conduct offices hosted a Denim Day tabling event on April 24 at the University Center, in which they distributed patches to raise awareness behind Denim Day.
Whearty explained that Denim Day originated when a Supreme Court ruling for a sexual assault case in Italy held that the victim wasn't assaulted because she had been wearing “really tight jeans” at the time.
“This is the epitome of victim blaming, having no clue about what real consent looks like or sounds like just because someone may have appeared cooperative by pulling off their jeans in a dangerous situation,” she said. “The reason why we wear denim is to basically say screw you to that Supreme Court or other types of systems dictate what you're trying to wear and make it your fault for experiencing a sexual assault.”
The office has been in close collaboration with Safe Center, a Long Island nonprofit that serves survivors of various forms of violence, including intimate partner violence and sexual assault.
“They have an education programmer Nicole — who is fantastic — and we invited her a lot to do workshops like this to really educate the community,” said Whearty.
The key objective during Sexual Assault Awareness Month was to educate students, draw attention to resources available to them and empower those who may feel uncomfortable about coming forward.
“We’ve really been trying to focus on trauma-informed events that are raising awareness, that are also healing or have kind of a healing element, but prevention and education as well,” said Student Conduct Officer Bria Thorne, who partners regularly with the Title IX office. “Students are often afraid to report things that happen to them; there's a lot of trauma that comes with that. Sometimes, they don't really know where to go. I think that's why I wanted to partner with Title IX.”
Thorne stressed the importance of having these conversations on campus. “You don't see that happening on campus as much as I would like it to be happening,” she said. “We did try a little bit last year with Domestic Violence Awareness Month, but we definitely want to expand to workshops and encourage students to attend. A lot of students kind of resonate with at least the messaging and what the mission is. I think it's a big topic on campus, so that's why we want to see more student body involvement.”
Both Thorne and Whearty served as members of the planning committee for Take Back the Night, the signature event of the month. Attendees assembled in the University Center Ballroom to listen to keynote speaker Angela Rose, founder of the nonprofit PAVE: Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment, and then marched across campus to demonstrate against all forms of sexual violence.
“There is this feeling you have sitting with all these people in the room and listening to their stories and experiences. I really enjoyed attending and doing the chanting. You could really feel the mission and the sentiment pull through the whole thing,” said Whearty.
October will mark Domestic Violence Awareness Month and members of the Adelphi community will be asked to wear purple in observance. All students are encouraged to participate.
“When it comes to Sexual Assault Awareness Month and other programming that we're hoping to do in the future we really want to see folks kind of coming in and participating in the education and prevention events,” said Whearty. “I'd love to see more folks.”
Adding that male students in particular are invited, Whearty continued: “Sexual Assault Awareness Month is for all, but I think maybe there's a discomfort in feeling like you don't want to insert yourself on a topic that you don't know about or that others may have more experience with.”
Thorne added, “As far as anyone coming up to our table, I'd love to see more of our male students writing notes to survivors. I would love to see that, but I really want to see more students just in general kind of engaging with the topics because I think the more you know, the better you're going to be. We've got a lot in the works for October.”
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