Obama Targets College Sexual Assault Epidemic |
Recently, President Obama spoke to the issue of sexual violence occurring on college campuses, calling it “an affront on our basic decency and humanity.” A report recently done by the White House found that 1 in 5 females on a college campus are sexually assaulted, while only 1 in 8 report it. The report listed long term effects of such violence resulting in depression, substance abuse, and chronic pain and other health ailments. With this information Obama decided it was time to act and did so by signing a memorandum recently creating a task force to respond to campus rapes.
He gave the task force 90 days to come up with recommendations for colleges to improve prevention and intervention efforts, as well as promote coordination amongst federal agencies with schools and increase public awareness of the track record of each college. Obama hopes to engage more young people into the conversation, especially young men, “We need to encourage young people, men and women, to realize that sexual assault is simply unacceptable. And they’re going to have to summon the bravery to stand up and say so, especially when the social pressure to keep If you are interested in learning more about your schools track record or what you can do to improve sexual assault policies on your campus check out the website for Students Active for Ending Rape (SAFER) at http://safercampus.org. For the full story go to: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2014-01-22-Obama-College%20Sexual%20Assaults/id-7aff4cc2b9064be4a04c49a68ed6af97 For the full video of Obama’s speech go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7rMm1i-xQQ |