This story was one of many retold in anonymous submissions read by Dartmouth students Wednesday night in Collis Common Ground during Speak Out, an annual student-run forum designed to show how sexual assault affects students at the College.
"I want to confer a glimpse into my sister's hell and that's why I'm here today," the male student's piece read. "I don't know exactly what else to say, but please help me and please help each other."
Many of the pieces were submitted by students who had directly experienced sexual assault. One submission recounted a night a female student spent at a fraternity and her subsequent walk home that ended with her being raped.
"Maybe you were re-racking the games with your frat brothers and noted that I could barely walk," the piece stated. "Or maybe you figured that carrying me home from frat row earned you the right to sleep with me."
The forum was intended to be one led by and for students to increase awareness of sexual assault at Dartmouth and allow victims to express themselves, Lense Gebre-Mariam '09, one of the event's organizers, said. Tanisha Stowers '10 and Amanda Cohen '09 also organized the event. Although all three of the forum's organizers are Sexual Assault Peer Advisors, Speak Out is not sponsored by SAPA. Cohen is a member of The Dartmouth Senior Staff and Gebre-Mariam is a former member of The Dartmouth staff.
"The goal of Speak Out is to take this overwhelming thought of violence and bring it forward in the most simple way," Gebre-Mariam said. "There are students on this campus, some you may know or some you may have just passed briefly, and those people have been affected by sexual assault."
Each of the readers wore a piece of Dartmouth clothing to represent their affiliation with the Dartmouth community, Gebre-Mariam said. While readers of the anonymous submissions were all members of different organizations, she said, the shirts represented solidarity.
Students' anonymous submissions were obtained via e-mail or were placed in Cohen's Hinman Box.
In addition to listening to the anonymous submissions, attendees could look at additional works and rape statistics displayed on boards in the back of Common Ground or go next door to make necklaces and T-shirts.
The crafts were meant to provide students with a way to cope with emotions provoked during the event, Gebre-Mariam said."If people were maybe a little shaken by what they'd heard or if they needed a mental break, they could come here and help make T-shirts."
The T-shirts will become part of Dartmouth's Clothesline Project, Gebre-Mariam added. The Project, organized annually during Sexual Awareness Month by the College's Sexual Assault Awareness Program, displays shirts with messages regarding sexual assault. This year's Project was displayed in Collis until Wednesday night.
Students' unwillingness to read the victims' anonymous submissions was one of the hardest parts of planning Speak Out, according to Gebre-Mariam. Even the night before the performance, students who had agreed to be readers dropped out, she said.
Gebre-Mariam was disappointed with the number of students in attendance at this year's forum, she said.
"We had about half of Common Ground filled, but usually there's overwhelming attendance and countless students show up," she said.
Students are often reluctant to come to events related to sexual assault, Rebel Roberts, interim coordinator of the Sexual Assault Awareness Program, said. She added that low attendance at events like Wednesday's forum make victims feel as though they lack support from the community.
"My hope is that the whole community comes together to end violence on campus," Roberts said. "Being a part of these events is showing that we are an inclusive, close community."
