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In Yard Vigil, Students 'Take Back the Night'

“I personally think that it is important for male groups, particularly male social groups, to be involved to express that sexual assault is not just a women’s issue,” Jared M. Slade ’03, an Alpha Epsilon Pi member who has helped spearhead the group’s involvement in TBTN, wrote in an e-mail.

According to Slade, members of the fraternities have been helping to poster and table for TBTN all week.

On Monday night, the Black Students Association, the Black Men’s Forum and the Association of Black Harvard Women co-sponsored a viewing of the film “No!” a documentary about sexual assault within black communities, and held a panel with the film’s producer, Aishah Shahidah Simmons, afterwards.

On Tuesday night, a large crowd came to hear Katie Koestner—whose experience going public with her story of date rape in the early 90s brought the issue to national attention—speak in Science Center C.

This year, the issue of sexual assault on campus is a particularly charged, since the Leaning Committee—charged with issuing recommendations on Harvard’s sexual assault policy—is due to issue its report as early as this month.

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“We want to make our audiences aware of what is going on,” Honig said. “We feel that if the people were willing to come to the events, they’d also be interested in other sexual assault issues and particularly campus sexual assault issues.”

—Staff writer Sarah M. Seltzer can be reached at sseltzer@fas.harvard.edu.

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