Trigger warning: This article contains references to sexual assault.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this article included a statement that could not be verified. It has since been removed. This article has been updated.

by Olivia Borgula

Using blue and red paint, freshman Tia Yu wrote “I can still feel his uninvited touch,” on a t-shirt during the Clothesline Project on Wednesday. 

The business management major said that her message aimed to spread awareness about the lasting effects of sexual assault on survivors. 

“Those 10, 20, however many minutes were just 10, 20 minutes for [perpetrators]. But for the survivors, it’s a lifetime,” she said. “They still feel it, they still think about it, and it’s very vivid.”

Yu’s shirt was one of many clipped to clotheslines around Hornbake Plaza as part of a display to empower and advocate for survivors of sexual assault. It comes in the middle of the “Red Zone,” the period between August and November where sexual assault tends to spike on college campuses. Others were adorned with messages like “I lost my sister when I was 5 when you took her innocence.”

“I was kind of shocked,” said Kavyasri Gouda, a sophomore mechanical engineering major and passerby who stopped to look at the t-shirts. “I feel like it’s a strong statement. And because the language and wording is so strong on the shirts, I feel like it will force people to stop and actually read what it says.” 

This project was coordinated by Campus Advocates Respond and Educate to Stop Violence (CARE), which provides therapy and advocacy services to survivors of sexual assault and promotes awareness through outreach events on campus. 

“[We’re] offering shirts for folks to create today that have messages either have support for survivors or victims of relationship violence or sexual violence,” said Laura Widener, assistant coordinator for prevention education at CARE. “It’s just to raise awareness that this is an issue. And I think it’s like a really powerful way to do it.”

One student, who requested anonymity to share their story, wrote “I was 7” on their shirt. “I trusted you,” “You were my uncle” and other comments were written along the edges.

“I was seven years old,” they said. “I actually didn’t tell my own family until a few years ago, and this happened to me a long time ago. So it was definitely something really hard to come to terms with and accept … 12 years later, I feel his presence lingering on me.”

But events like the Clothesline Project help empower them and other survivors to continue moving forward, the student said. 

“He doesn’t have power over me anymore,” they said. “It feels really nice, releasing that out into the world. I’m not a victim, I’m a survivor, obviously, he’s the one that’s going to live with that for the rest of his life knowing what he did to a 7-year-old girl.”

The University of Maryland Police Department has reported three rapes so far in 2022 – which includes rape and attempts to rape. The Office of Civil Rights and Sexual Misconduct recorded 213 reports of sexual misconduct between 2019 and 2020. It’s impossible to obtain a completely accurate account because many victims are reluctant to report sexual violence.

Across the country, more than a quarter of female undergraduates experience rape or sexual assault, according to a report by the Association of American Universities.According to a 2007 study about campus sexual assault, 50% of these campus assaults occur during the months of August-November. 

Yu said the Clothesline project helps make students feel seen, and stressed the importance of events like it to uplift and support survivors. 

“[The project] not only brings awareness, but it’s empowering,” she said. “I see so many shirts and I see so many different types of people writing this and it feels just empowering to know that I’m not alone.”  

Featured image: A T-shirt hanging on a clothesline in Hornbake Plaza reads “UMD student told me you deserver to be raped by those men,” Wednesday, October 12, 2022. Photo by Emily Condon.