President Obama’s Initiative Against Sexual Assault Calls for Public Awareness
U.S. President Barack Obama recently announced a call to action against sexual assaults on college campuses. President Obama signed a memorandum that will create a task force whose charge is to find practical measures to prevent sexual assaults and improve the quality, urgency, perception and speed of responses to sexual assaults within 90 days.
The task force which is advisory in nature, includes Attorney General Eric Holder, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
Women on college campuses are particularly vulnerable to sexual assault because more frequently, incidents occur when women are drunk, under the influence of drugs, unconscious or otherwise unable to function (typically at party settings) according to the report.
Chicago State University’s (CSU) Director of Public Policy Thomas Wogan issued this statement in response to the president’s call to action.
“In terms of Chicago State University, President Obama’s message on campus safety is a very good thing and will do a lot to make sure that the issue is being addressed at all universities across the country. At CSU we have always made student safety our very top priority. We try to do as much as we can on the front end to prevent incidents before they happen and in the event of an incident we have an array of victim advocate services. We do go to great lengths to ensure that anyone on campus is as safe as possible.”
The Chicago Police Department (CPD) defines criminal sexual assault as, “broader than the traditional definition of ‘rape’ (the carnal knowledge of a female, forcibly against her will), this category includes any sexual assault – completed, attempted, aggravated or non-aggravated – committed against any victim, male or female.
“The prevalence of rape and sexual assault at our Nation's institutions of higher education is both deeply troubling and a call to action,” said President Obama. “Although schools have made progress in addressing rape and sexual assault, more needs to be done to ensure safe, secure environments for students of higher education. Institutions must also adopt and publish grievance procedures that provide for the prompt and equitable resolution of rape and sexual assault complaints, and investigate reports of rape and sexual assault and take swift action to prevent their recurrence.”
The timing of the memorandum is in concert with the release of the White House’s Council on Women and Girl’s report, Rape and Sexual Assault: A Renewed Call to Action. The report details sexual assault and gives in-depth analysis on the causes and aftermath of sexual assaults
The report also concludes that almost one in five women, which is roughly equivalent to 22 million women in the United States, have been raped in their life time. Women of color have been particularly vulnerable to being raped. Thirty-three-and-a-half percent of multiracial women have been raped and 22% of African American women have been raped. Thirty percent of females raped for the first time are between the ages of 11-17 years-old. Women 18-24 years-old made up 38% of the women who were raped for the first time.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that 80% of female victims were raped before they turned 25.
In recent the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled under the Title IX section of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, that colleges and or universities that receive federal funds are held legally responsible for knowing of a sexual assault, sexual harassment, and rape.
For more information visit http://www.whitehouse.gov/.
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