Changes made to PSA: current and ongoing
Evaluating our Organization
At PSA, we aim to consistently and continuously evaluate our work to understand how we can best serve our community. As such, we have made some notable changes to our operations that we hope will better reflect our values.
Changes Made to Events
Historically, PSA has hosted a “SlutWalk”, let’s talk about why we won’t be going forward. SlutWalk was started in 2011 by a group of Canadian college students after a police officer told them they should “avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized” at an event meant to address campus s*xual ass*ult. Rightfully outraged, the students hosted the first “SlutWalk” in protest of the comment. The event garnered international attention and was replicated in multiple cities across the U.S. and Canada. These events would feature chants, banners, posters, and encouraged participants to dress however they pleased. But, from its conception, SlutWalk has faced consistent criticisms from various feminist activists, scholars, and feminist groups, including AF3IRM and the Crunk Feminist Collective. The following excerpt comes from “An Open Letter from Black Women to the SlutWalk:
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Once these criticisms were brought to the attention of PSA leadership, it was clear we could not proceed with the event as we had in the past. In our journey to uplift survivors of all backgrounds on campus, we realize that “SlutWalk” may be alienating, uncomfortable, or unrepresentative for many members of our community. Therefore, we have decided to rename this event "Red Zone Rally" As you may know, the “Red Zone” is the time between the end of August and Thanksgiving break, wherein the majority of campus sexual assaults will take place. With this new event, we aim to spread awareness about the Red Zone and empower each and every survivor in our campus community. In this event, the "Letters to Pines" initiative allows survivors of power-based violence, victims of inadequate support, and angry students who demand change to share their stories to Administration as a request for action. Letters are published anonymously and served to administration during the protest. Those who submit their stories will be invited to speak if they choose to.
Changes Made to the Organization
PSA's major and ongoing goal right now is to restructure the victim narrative away from white, cisgender, straight women, and amplify the voices of marginalized identities that represent our community at UMD. Moreover, we are decentralizing Greek life and reallocating resources to other communities on campus. This does not mean we are no longer supporting the aforementioned identities or groups, but instead, that we aim to redistribute our resources and support equally across all identities and groups at UMD. We acknowledge that the majority of our organization, including the executive board, consists of white women. It is difficult to change the narrative of victim profiles if our organization's most powerful voices are white women. As allies, we realize that in speaking for marginalized communities, we need to be careful that we are not claiming these experiences as our own or silencing the voices of other communities. Because of the caveats of our intersectional initiatives, we ask that the UMD community takes time to evaluate our inclusiveness in PSA so we can better support marginalized communities. In doing this, we posit the following questions:
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What issues should we be addressing?
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this can be related to any BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, socioeconomic, religious, etc. issues, not solely issues surrounding sexual assault or power-based violence.
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What organizations should we be communicating in order to address these issues?
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What have we done poorly? What can we do to fix advocacy problems in our network?
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How can we better support the students at UMD?
Please answer these questions here