<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=47jpJD_1GnlSE6Q00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=47jpJD_1GnlSE6Q00" width="1000" height="750" ><figcaption>Students “Take Back the Night” in a march across campus. Photo by June Su | The Middlebury Campus</figcaption></figure>Editor’s Note: This article includes mention of sexual assault.Last Thursday, Oct. 29, the Reproductive Rights Alliance (RRA) and Chellis House organized a “Take Back the Night” discussion and march focusing on the prevalance of rape culture on campus. Around 50 people participated in the teach-in at the Grille, listening to various student, community and faculty voices. While the speakers described various networks of education, support and protest, participants made signs which they then carried as they marched across campus. At the head of the moving crowd, RRA organizers Eleanor Karr ’29 and Eliza Cucchiara ’29, among others, led chants affirming principles of consent and feminist action.“Whatever we wear, wherever we go, yes means yes and no means no!” the crowd yelled, drawing students to peer out their dorm windows and whoops or pauses from passerbys. “We have the power, we have the might! The streets are ours, take back the night!”Karr described the central mission of the event in an interview with The Campus. “We want to break the silence here, to break the culture of protecting assaulters and help students feel more safe on campus. We want to symbolically and literally take back the night,” Karr said. The event took place roughly three weeks after the Cornell Seven civil-suit became national and international news, re-sparking debates surrounding rape culture on college campuses worldwide. The case alleges that Cornell University failed to protect the claimant after she had reported that she had been drugged and gang-raped by members of a fraternity in 2024. “Cornell is shining a spotlight on the true culture that exists at these seemingly ‘liberal’ institutions. Cornell was an egregious, upsetting event, but it was not out of the ordinary, and we’re taking this time when people are talking more about rape culture on campus to say, ‘Hey, it happens here too,’ Karr explained. “We're seeing surge of national attention on sexual violence at this particular moment with the Cornell case and a few other cases out of University of Chicago,” echoed Harper Nichols ’24, the director of the Feminist Resource Center at Chellis House. “At the same time, it's something that's clearly been happening for a long time.” Nichols contextualized the event at Middlebury, explaining that it was one iteration of a long tradition of feminist action. “The original ‘Take Back the Night’ protests started in the '70s as a response to broad violence against women. [It involves] reclaiming the night and walking around outside at night, because that's obviously something that women can't always do safely,” explained Nichols.Middlebury students first participated in the international movement in 1990, when various student groups organized a similar march. The latest effort is the first “Take Back the Night” event at Middlebury College since the 2002 week of action hosted by the student organization Feminist Action at Middlebury.RRA launched the discussion and march as one of their first public events on campus. The student collective began in spring 2026 with the help of Chellis House and the department of Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies (GSFS) to start conversations about reproductive healthcare and consent culture. “[We want to] call attention to the fact that, regardless of the school’s official statistics, this is not a safe campus. Rape happens here. We want people to be aware of that. We want people to have the confidence to speak out and break the culture of silence,” Karr said.According to the Middlebury Public Safety 2026 Annual Security and Fire Safety Report, there were 21 instances of reported rape between 2023 and 2025, with nine instances of rape documented in 2025 alone. Sujata Moorti, professor of GSFS, spoke at the teach-in about the history of feminist activism on campus, as detailed in the Archives of Dissent. Among the projects that Moorti highlighted, she displayed the 2019 Map Project by the student organization It Happens Here: a campus map which locates 108 instances of sexual assaults or harassment with red dots. According to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN), one in four women in undergraduate school will experience sexual assault. College-age victims account for about one-third of all rapes reported to law enforcement.Shavi Gupta ’29, a volunteer rape crisis counselor with RAINN’s 24/7 hotline, spoke to the gathered community at the Grille. She explained her work, which includes legal assistance, resource sharing, and emotional support and processing. “I got involved because I wanted to work on the front lines of a cause that really mattered to me and I wanted to directly support people who needed it the most. And I know that victims of sexual violence are tremendously not believed,” Gupta said “A lot of times we are the first people they reach out to,” Gupta added. “So it means a lot that I can make a difference in someone else's life, that I could possibly make or break their recovery. I hope that I can continue making an impact.” According to Gupta, hotline calls have doubled since the breaking of the Cornell Seven case. “We are always looking for more volunteers, especially since Cornell Seven. We have so many people reaching out,” Gupta said. “You can apply online at RAINN.org. You can look up how to be a volunteer and all the information is out there. If anyone wants to talk about it, I am here.” Alongside speeches from Moorti and Gupta, Chloe Silverman ’27 of SPECS explained misconceptions around safe sex and consent. Family Services Coordinator Kathryn Kayhart highlighted the advocacy and support work of Atria Collective. Cucchiara reflected on the protest, stating that it was great to see people mobilize people on campus around larger issues of rape culture. “This was a chance for us to see that people really do care and want to work around these issues … If someone is feeling like they have a lot to say about this, hopefully they’ve met other people who feel the same way. That'll give people a platform through power in numbers.”Like Gupta, Cucchiara emphasized that there are many ways for people to get involved. “[Atria and RAINN] are two organizations that people can work with if they want to do things immediately. Our club, the Reproductive Rights Alliance, is also going to be doing more organizing around this … We're definitely not going to stop this fight.”June SuJune Su '27 (he/him) is the Senior Multimedia Editor. June is studying Political Science and Studio Art. He recently returned from studying abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he also interned at FM La Tribu 88.7. He spent the rest of the summer working as a Environmental Studies research assistant studying Theories of Change in social movements. In his free time, he is growing white hair over Spanish and Mandarin Chinese, painting and photographing his friends, and fumigating his apartment with stir fry fumes. </div></body>

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Editor’s Note: This article includes mention of sexual assault. Last Thursday, Oct. 29, the Reproductive Rights Alliance (RRA) and Chellis House organized a “Take Back the Night” discussion and march focusing on the prevalance of rape culture on campus. Around 50 people participated in the teach-in at the Grille, listening to various student, community and faculty voices. While the speakers described various networks of education, support and protest, participants made signs which they then carried as they marched across campus.

‘Take Back the Night’: students protest rape culture on campus

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Editor’s Note: This article includes mention of sexual assault. Last Thursday, Oct. 29, the Reproductive Rights Alliance (RRA) and Chellis House organized 

‘Take Back the Night’: students protest rape culture on campus

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