Thousands of students at UCD took part in a rally this lunchtime in solidarity with victims of sexual violence and to call on their university to do better in addressing the issue and supporting students.
The campus ground to a standstill as students gathered at O'Reilly Hall.
They listened to speeches before marching, with loud chants echoing around the lake and outside the university's Students' Union building.
The demonstration was called by UCD Students' Union on behalf of students, following controversy over a case involving one student, a sexually explicit image of whom was circulated by an anonymous source via college emails and to a large UCD student WhatsApp group.
Last night, the student featured on RTÉ's Prime Time and said the image of her was taken without her knowledge and consent after she was the victim of rape three years ago.
She said the first time she heard that the image even existed was two years later, when she received a call from gardaí to say it had been sent anonymously to more than 170 staff accounts in UCD. In November last year, the image was shared again, this time to a WhatsApp group of 300 UCD students of which she was a member.
Among its criticisms of the college, the students' union has said UCD took too long to condemn the circulation of the images and when it came its condemnation was not strong enough.
It has called on UCD to apologise to the student concerned and to the student cohort that received the images of sexual abuse via WhatsApp.
Students' Union Education Officer Matt Mion said he hoped today's protest would be a watershed moment for universities such as UCD to take a stand against sexual violence.
He said there was "uproar" across the campus.
Thousands of students arrived at O’Reilly Hall, with more joining the demonstration as it made its way across the campus.
Students expressed outrage and anger at how they believe victims of sexual violence are treated.
Rachel Morrogh of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre addresses the rally
'Needs of the student have been at centre of university's response' - UCD
"This is an extremely distressing and complex case, and the needs of the student have been at the centre of the university’s response throughout," a UCD spokesperson said.
The university said it acknowledged "the deep distress and anguish that this shocking and abhorrent criminal activity is causing the student".
It said the emails in question had come from a number of different Swiss-based Proton email addresses and targeted a number of predominantly office and staff email accounts.
In most cases, the university’s IT spam filtering systems automatically diverted these emails to junk or spam folders and the emails were not seen by the intended recipients, it said.
"To protect the student and the recipients of these disturbing emails, IT services remotely deleted the offending messages from recipients' spam accounts without them knowing, in most cases, that they had received the email with the obscene image," the spokesperson said.
The image was also shared to the student WhatsApp group by an anonymous source from unknown numbers. This was brought to the attention of the School of Medicine by the class representatives.
UCD said it has no evidence that any of the students in the WhatsApp group further circulated or shared the images.
The college said the student at the heart of this has been supported by the head of the Student Advisory Services, who has offered ongoing support, regular meetings, check-ins and made additional support available.
It said the head of the School of Medicine also contacted the student on several occasions to offer to meet with her personally to provide support and guidance.
"The student has also been invited to meet with the university president together with the vice-president for equality, diversity and inclusion," the spokesperson said.
Read more: Image-based abuse left me 'shattered,' UCD medical student says
