Approximately 150 students and faculty gathered at Rabb steps last Tuesday for the annual Take Back the Night anti-sexual assault rally run by the Committee on Rape Education (CORE).Holding candles and chanting, "Brandeis unite! Take back the night!" the processional marched through various residence quads on campus, stopping at each to form a circle in which participants read poems and told personal stories of rape and sexual assault.

"The main goal [of Take Back the Night] is to make our campus feel as though it's safe at all times for every member of our community," Amanda Winer '06, the event's organizer, said. "We're claiming the night as a time for all."

Among the speakers at the event was Ruth Nemzoff, a scholar at the Women's Studies Research Center who encouraged participants to get actively involved in changing public policy by running for office and becoming part of committees.

"If you want to take back the night, you have to take back the day, because that's when the rules are made," Nemzoff said.

In a moment antithetical to the event, a student not participating in the march loudly played Nirvana's "Rape Me" on his stereo as the group proceeded. The act was met with immediate scorn and offense by members of CORE as well as the vigil's participants. The student immediately apologized.

Participants in the rally said that the lack of a prevalence of rape education, especially on college campuses, motivated them to join the march.

"People really do say [sexual assault] doesn't happen on this campus, but it does happen and it does happen here," Tammy Haendel '05 said. "These are real people and real stories, and just to have these faces attached to these stories makes it feel very real.