75 students participate in Take Back the Night march

More than 75 people gathered on Saturday night despite the cold and rainy weather to protest sexual violence by taking part in Princeton's 17th annual Take Back the Night march.

The group was smaller this year than in past years, organizer Iris Blasi '03 said, likely because of the rain and because Communiversity, an annual, all-day town-gown event, was cancelled.

Nancy Ippolito '03, who has been on the march's planning committee for the past four years, said she thought the smaller group added to the sense of intimacy marchers share.

"Take Back the Night is an attempt to start dialogue," Blasi wrote in a Daily Princetonian guest column on Friday. "It's a forum in which survivors can share their stories with survivors and supporters alike . . . It is only through talking and openly addressing the issue that we can hope to see it come to an end."

Traditionally, the marchers meet in the University chapel and walk around campus with candles, chanting and sharing their stories of sexual violence. At strategic points around campus, the group pauses to remember events or environments that invited sexual assault — the stop in Holder courtyard, for instance, is to remind marchers of the now-banned Nude Olympics, Blasi said of the tradition of nudity and drunkenness that precipitated incidents of sexual violence.

At each stop, there is also a few minutes of silence for meditation or so that marchers can offer stories or comments, Blasi said.

This year, the march began at Murray-Dodge Hall, to promote a more intimate atmosphere, Blasi said. At the gathering there, organizers passed out flashlight keychains with safety whistles and "Stopping the Silence," a booklet printed annually with University students' stories of sexual violence.

Ippolito, whose own story appears in the booklet, said it was difficult at first to commit the tale to print.

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"It's something that you're really hesitant to do and to put your name next to," she said. "But I'm really glad that I did it . . . people have emailed me told me that it has really affected them."

Organizers Saloni Doshi, Blasi and SHARE coordinator Thema Bryant spoke, and campus groups The Wildcats and The Firehazards performed before the assembly began to march.

In past years, marchers have been heckled by onlookers and participating faculty members' office doors were covered in grafitti. There was not any such reaction this year, Blasi said.