Obama Launches Campaign to Prevent Sexual Assault on College Campuses

With violence against women at the forefront of a national conversation, the Obama administration launched a new initiative that it hopes will reduce the number of sexual assault incidents that take place onΒ college campuses, Al-Jazeera reports.The It’s on Us campaign β€œseeks to engage college students and all members of campus communities in preventing sexual assault…

With violence against women at the forefront of a national conversation, the Obama administration launched a new initiative that it hopes will reduce the number of sexual assault incidents that take place onΒ college campuses, Al-Jazeera reports.

The It’s on Us campaign β€œseeks to engage college students and all members of campus communities in preventing sexual assault in the first place,” the White House said in a press statement Friday.

Video will return here when scrolled back into view

President Barack Obama and his team locked down an impressive cast of actors, athletes and musicians to drive home the message in a four-minute promotional video that is featured on the campaign’s website, ItsOnUs.org. Some of Hollywood’s biggest celebrities, like Kerry Washington, Common, Randy Jackson, Questlove, NBA star Kevin Love andΒ Mad Men’s John Hammβ€”along with Obama and Vice President Joe Bidenβ€”delivered a heartfelt plea encouraging people to be active participants in the fight against sexual assault.

β€œIt’s on us to stop sexual assault,” Hamm says at the start of the video.

β€œTo get in the way before it happens,” Washington chimes in, halfway through.

The website asks visitors to take a pledge to recognize and stop sexual assault and also to be aware of those situations that might lend themselves to a possible incident.

People can share news about their involvement with the campaign on their social media accounts by uploading a photo of themselves to the website. The photo will then be superimposed underneath the It’s on Us logo for sharing on Twitter or Facebook.

β€œThe campaign also plans to release new best-practices documents to help colleges combat sexual violence, which it will post on NotAlone.gov, a central website launched earlier this year where students can find resources about sexual assault including statistics at their particular schools,” the news site reports.

Read more at Al-Jazeera.

Straight From The Root

Sign up for our free daily newsletter.