Students, alumni and community members affiliated with IU’s Jacobs School of Music gathered Friday to demand a community that prevents sexual violence and protects survivors.
Brightly colored umbrellas dotted the crowd of around 150 students who showed up despite light rain.
The protest took place in front of the East Studio Building at the intersection of Eagleson Avenue and Third Street.
According to organizers, several of the black-and-white fliers posted around town before the event were defaced with anti-Asian hate speech and graffiti reading, “No one cares.”
A few therapy dogs were available on site to provide support to those potentially affected by the stories shared by survivors at the event.
Protesters brought signs reading, “I don’t want to play with abusers” and “Hold IU accountable.”
Student organizers called for the university administration, and specifically President Pamela Whitten, to take accountability for the rise in sexual assaults on campus.
Members of the Jacobs community shared anger that jazz student Chris Parker was allowed to return to campus after allegedly sexually assaulting another student.
Several students and alumni addressed the crowd at the event to share their own stories of being sexually assaulted within the music community. At least two students who knew Parker spoke.
Abby Malala is a former Jacobs student and IU alumna who spoke at Friday’s protest, and she shared some of her experience as a survivor of sexual assault herself.
“I don’t like to say that being assaulted ruins your life, because I definitely feel that I have taken so much of my power back in recent years,” Malala said after the event. “But it very deeply affects people.”
Malala helped to organize an open letter with around 50 signatures from the Jacobs community condemning Parker’s presence on campus earlier this year.
Malala says that overall, she worries that sexual assault isn’t a conversation people are willing to have.
“We need to end this silence and the stigma, because people are suffering, and people are in pain, and we need to end the suffering in silence,” she said.