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WINNER OF 2023 ASSOCIATED COLLEGIATE PRESS PACEMAKER AWARD, NEWSPAPER/NEWSMAGAZINE NAMED BEST CAMPUS NEWSPAPER IN CALIFORNIA FOR 2022 BY THE CALIFORNIA COLLEGE MEDIA ASSOCIATION AND CALIFORNIA NEWS PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Volume 162 No. 36 SERVING SAN JOSÉ STATE UNIVERSITY SINCE 1934
WWW.SJSUNEWS.COM/SPARTAN_DAILY
KAYA HENKES-POWER | SPARTAN DAILY
Around 15 San José State students walk by the Victory Salute statue and around campus with signs in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month in the early evening on Tuesday.
SJSU students Take Back the Night By Kaya Henkes-Power & Ethan Li
Short said. “I wanted to bring that to SJSU.” STAFF WRITERS Short said it’s important to have healing one on one San José State students with people, but to also celebrated Take Back The heal in a community. Night on Tuesday evening by the Victory Salute (Olympic Black Power) statue. Sexual As s au lt In honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Awareness Month is a Month, the Gender chance to listen and honor Equity Center hosted survivors and learn more the event to recognize about sexual violence, Take Back the Night, a according to a webpage worldwide movement for the New York State beginning in the 1970s Office For the Prevention that stands against sexual of Domestic Violence. Selena Hernandez, violence, according to the organization’s mission campus survivor advocate for the Survivor Advocacy statement. Jessica Short, the Program, said her role program coordinator advocates for and supports for the Gender Equity the needs of survivors of Center, experienced sexual violence. this movement as an “What this month is undergraduate student. and hopes to do is bring “That was a really awareness more to transformative experience survivor experiences and being able to share my also bring prevention story with other folks,” and education,” Hernandez
said. About 13% of all students experience rape or sexual assault through physical force, violence or incapacitation, according to a webpage by the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. KK Chaangam, a volunteer at the Survivor Advocacy Table, said she is
violence. Chaangam said people often take responsibility for the horrible things done to them and it is important for them to understand and be reminded that it is not their fault. “(Survivors think), ‘What happened to us? Maybe it was my fault,’ ” she said. “It’s so sad to see
It’s about reclaiming night time, but also a time in your life where maybe you feel unsafe in a particular situation so it’s all about taking back control. Melissa McClure Fuller Health promotion specialist at the Student Wellness Center
driven to work for survivor advocacy because she has known many people who experienced sexual violence and domestic
them blame themselves.” Nearly 80% of rapes and sexual assaults go unreported, according to a 2018 news analysis from the Brennan Center for Justice. “A lot of the time when survivors do step into my space, it’s like ‘You’re the first one I’m telling because I’m scared to tell my loved ones, or of the reaction.’ ” Hernandez said. She said her priority and goal is to spark conversations among students, but also between peers.
KAYA HENKES-POWER | SPARTAN DAILY
Student with a sign that reads "SAFETY IS OUR RIGHT" on Tower Lawn on Tuesday.
Students marched holding handmade signs while chanting, “Whatever we wear, our bodies are ours and no means no.”
“What’s most inspiring to me working at this university is the students,” Short said. “Seeing you all support one another especially when it’s something I created is my heart’s work.” S e hte j Khehra, Associated Students' director of rights and responsibilities, said he helps run these events. At Khehra’s booth students could sign their name on the protest flag that demonstrators carried as they marched through campus. He said students’ Take Back the Night helps create safer college campuses by educating students about sexual assault. “Take Back the Night is a really big movement and all of us, all over the nation, should know intervention strategies like bystander intervention,” Khehra said. Bystander intervention is a prevention strategy that encourages witnesses to take safe action when they see a situation that could lead to sexual violence or abuse, according to a webpage for the University of Illinois Chicago. Kayla Le, event coordinator intern, said consent is very important in our society. “I feel like survivors are scared,” Le said. “There isn’t a lot of cases where they’ll actually properly address (their concerns).” Le said she has encountered many students that didn’t know that SJSU has a campus survivor advocate or programs like Title IX.
Le said her booth helped support students’ mental health. She said people had an opportunity to create “self affirmation jars” in which students decorated a Mason jar and wrote affirmations on them. Melissa McClure Fuller, a health promotion specialist at the Student Wellness Center, said the event was being brought back to campus after a few years on hiatus. Fuller said the event has been on hiatus due to COVID-19 on SJSU campus, but it has continued strong throughout the world on other college campuses. “(Take Back The Night) is really about reclaiming a time,” Fuller said. “You know, night time can be kind of scary so it’s about reclaiming night time, but also a time in your life where maybe you feel unsafe in a particular situation so it’s all about taking back control.” She said this event took place in the backdrop of Sexual Assault Awareness Month and the other programs that SJSU put on throughout the month. Jessica Short, the program coordinator for the Gender Equity Center, hopes to build momentum and keep the event going. “I’m interested to see if we do this event next year (and) like how it changes from what this was today,” Short said.
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