The White House launched an ambitious branding campaign Friday aimed at ending sexual assaults on college campuses, in part by enlisting the support of major college sports leagues and prominent celebrities.
President Obama and Vice President Biden launched the initiative, called "It's On Us," at an event in the White House's East Room. Lilly Jay, who introduced Biden and spoke in stark personal terms about what it meant to be raped as a student at Amherst and try to "reclaim college."
"Recalling rape always hurts," she said, adding that having "allies" decry sexual assault makes things easier. "They help carry the heavy truth that colleges can, and should, be safer."
Both Obama and Biden emphasized that men needed to join the effort to make sexual assault socially unacceptable.
"This is not your fight alone. This is on all of us, every one of us, to fight campus sexual assault," the president said. "You are not alone. And we have your back and we are going to organize campus by campus, city by city, state by state. The entire country is going to make sure that we understand what this is about and that we’re going to put a stop to it."
Read more at The Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/09/19/seeking-to-end-rape-on-campus-wh-launches-its-on-us/?wpisrc=nl_rdin&wpmm=1