April is sexual assault awareness month. And on Friday, one of the four former Vanderbilt football players involved in the infamous Vanderbilt rape case from June 2013 was retried alone. After nearly three hours of deliberations, the jury came to their conclusion and justice was timely served this awareness month. The jury found Corey Batey, a 22-year-old former Vanderbilt football player, guilty of aggravated rape and aggravated sexual battery.

According to a Washington Post poll conducted last year, 25 percent of women and 7 percent of men are victims of “unwanted sexual incidents” while in university. The Washington Post conducted the poll last year by telephone, which surveyed 1,053 women and men undergraduate students at a four-year college, between the ages of 17 to 26, living on campus or nearby. Sexual assault was defined as five different types of “unwanted contact: forced touching of a sexual nature, oral sex, vaginal sexual intercourse, anal sex and sexual penetration with a finger or object.” Using that definition specifically, “5 percent of men and 20 percent of women said they had been sexually assaulted in college.”

With sexual assaults on college campuses increasing and becoming an issue that needs to be addressed more urgently than ever, more colleges are joining the effort to put an end to sexual assault each year and are implementing “mandatory sexual assault awareness programs.” In addition to these mandatory awareness programs, “many universities have joined President Obama’s “It’s On Us” campaign, which is a nation-wide promotion aimed at putting an end to sexual assault on college campuses.” Though universities are showing a commitment to effectively address the issue of sexual assault on campuses, there are been results that indicate that these programs are not yet working. This last fall, Indiana University invited more than 7,000 undergraduate and graduate students to take a survey about their perceptions and experiences with sexual assault. It found:

Twenty-nine percent of the undergraduate women reported experiencing some form of nonconsensual sexual touching while at IU […] 35 percent of the undergraduate women and 34 percent of the graduate women reported being the victims of some form of sexual harassment while at IU […] and, 86 percent of the undergraduate women and 85 percent of the graduate women participants who reported experiencing some form of nonconsensual sexual contact did not report the incident to anyone at IU.

As these findings are similar findings with studies conducted at other universities, an answer on how to solve the epidemic of sexual assault on campuses remains to be solved. Hopefully, this recent court ruling against Batey will influence sexual assault victims to speak up and encourage universities to continue to make efforts with protecting and creating a safe space for sexual assault survivors, and putting an end to this horrendous crime for good.

Ashlyn Marquez

Ashlyn Marquez received her law degree from the American University, Washington College of Law and her Bachelor’s degree from The New School. She works in immigration law and has a passion for worker’s rights, tacos, and avocados. Contact Ashlyn at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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How do Millennials help America build a better future? With over 1,200 business-casual-clad young activists and leaders packed into a chilly ballroom washed with blue stage lights, Generation Progress rallied Millennials in Washington, D.C. at its national summit on Thursday in an attempt to find out.

Now in its tenth year, Generation Progress’s “Make Progress” National Summit offers young people a day packed with well known speakers, inspiring dialogues, and stimulating buzzwords. With keynote speakers on the main stage and breakout sessions on topics ranging from diversity in public office to sexual assault prevention and student debt, attendees throughout the day were empowered through education on critical issues. Through communal support and prodigious encouragement from American leaders, the mood was alive with the goal of the day: creating progress.

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren opened up the summit with an invigorating speech that earned dozens of standing ovations. Reverberating energy, Senator Warren spoke about college affordability, diversity, and social change inspired by activism. During one pause, an audience member yelled out “Run for president!” to which the Senator responded with a big grin and a chuckle, while everyone else jumped to their feet and erupted in approving cheers and applause. Her most applauded statement was that the progressive Supreme Court decisions over the past weeks were the direct result of young activists who dedicate their lives to fighting for social justice, stating, “We get what we fight for. Are you ready to get out there and fight?”

This morning I told young people at #MakeProgress: You get what you fight for. pic.twitter.com/JhwTtTzGBa

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) July 16, 2015

Michele Jawando, Vice President for Legal Progress at the Center for American Progress, later took the stage for a sobering panel on reforming the criminal justice system. She expressed her belief that young people putting pressure on their elected officials and demanding change is critical, and commended the Millennial generation for its high level of engagement with issues of importance, simultaneously striking down the notion that our generation is unengaged or uninformed.

After asking the audience to “stand up if you have participated in a march, a protest, or an online day of action in the past six months,” more than half of the room was standing. Jawando stated, “the only time Congress pays attention is when there is enough action that forces them to pay attention.” She praised those who partake in activist movements, particularly the sit-ins that forced members of Congress to face the consequences of adverse decisions, and encouraged all to become involved. The discussion then led to a breakdown of the 1994 crime bill that increased mandatory minimums for those sentenced to prison, created the “tough on crime” rhetoric that is only recently beginning to be critically questioned, and created a definition of criminals as young people of color. Jawando said that many current members of Congress were members in 1994 when this draconian bill was passed and that “some of those members don’t really want to concede, they don’t want to admit they were wrong.” She then expressed that while discussing reform is important, action needs to be immediate. “Yeah we are tweeting about it, we’re writing about it, we’re marching in the streets…But we still have to pass a bill y’all.”

Jawando made a few key remarks that resonated deeply with the young, social justice-minded audience; first, that there is a strong connection between the people who are elected and the changes we see in society. Second, that humanizing issues and telling personal stories of injustice is the most powerful way to inspire change. And third, that there is a dangerous misconception that people who are in prison always deserve to be there; Jawando stated that this mindset of “otherization,” or the “us versus them” mentality, will continue to act as a barrier to change until these divisions are broken.

.@MicheleJawando shares her personal experience on discrimination & the criminal justice system #MakeProgress pic.twitter.com/43TsktDXrl

— LCLAA (@LCLAA) July 16, 2015

My favorite breakout panel occurred in the afternoon: “It’s On US: Advocates Creating Cultural Change” featuring keynote speaker Tina Tchen. Tchen, Assistant to President Obama, Chief of Staff to Michelle Obama, and Executive Director of the White House Council on Women and Girls, gave an inspiring and informative speech on Generation Progress’s national campaign to prevent sexual assault. One in five women on college campuses will be sexually assaulted or experience some form of sexual violence by the time they graduate college. “We know, and you know, that this is a crisis on campuses,” Tchen said. The It’s On US movement on college campuses aims to fundamentally change the environment of rape culture and shift the conversation to be empowering for survivors and encouraging for those who have the ability to intervene in situations that could end in assault. “We are fundamentally on our way to a society that recognizes and supports survivors,” Tchen said over snaps and applause. Panelists encouraged students to join or start It’s On US on their respective college campuses, and to take the pledge to end sexual assault.

"It's not just about stopping sexual assault on campus. That is just the start."-Tina Tchen at #MakeProgress @ItsOnUs pic.twitter.com/apyLvEcAlR

— Chante Harris (@chante__harris) July 16, 2015

The final speaker of the day, and the most anticipated, was Vice President Joe Biden. All smartphones were whipped out to welcome the Vice President and most summit-goers found themselves on tiptoe in their chairs to catch a better glimpse of the esteemed guest. Mr. Biden gave a powerful, insightful, but occasionally lighthearted speech, that felt much more like sitting down for an after-dinner conversation with an affectionate grandfather than an address by the Vice President. The VP touched on a range of topics, from the need to create affordable education, to climate change, to closing the expanding wage gap in the country. He even called on politicians to resist donations from millionaires and billionaires to fund their primary election campaigns, potentially an allusion to Senator Bernie Sanders who also cares deeply and advocates against the privatization of political donations.

"If you could do only 1 thing to increase equality what would it be?" @VP asks the #MakeProgress crowd. "Get private money out of politics"

— Generation Progress (@genprogress) July 16, 2015

The Vice President expressed his sincere appreciation and confidence in the Millennial generation, stating “There’s more reason today than ever before to be idealistic, optimistic, tenacious, passionate, and principled.” The most prominent message Mr. Biden delivered during his time on stage was that passion, just like the passion in the room before him, is what generates social change and makes progress.

"I applaud your passion. Never apologize for it. Never explain it away." @JoeBiden at @genprogress #MakeProgress pic.twitter.com/T5cowdiCLT

— Emily Dalgo (@DalgoEmily) July 16, 2015

Generation Progress’s Make Progress National Summit concluded with a slew of selfies with Joe Biden and a ballroom full of young activists stepping back into the D.C. sun with newfound inspiration and admiration for the causes they believe in. The summit, though only one day long, has the power and the potential to ignite young minds for years to come. Make Progress is proof that Millennials do care about the issues. They are engaged, they’re active, and they’re ready to fight. Outside, the only audible sound was of heels clicking and dress shoes clacking on the sidewalks as the attendees trickled out of the summit. But one sound still echoed in everyone minds: applause and cheers for change, for action, and for progress.

Emily Dalgo

Emily Dalgo is a member of the American University Class of 2017 and a Law Street Media Fellow during the Summer of 2015. Contact Emily at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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A few weeks ago the White House began what it calls the It’s On Us campaign to end campus sexual assault. This campaign is a direct result of last April’s Title IX developments to try and change the way we look at consent and rape. As Vice President Joe Biden so sagely put it: “Violence against women is not a women’s issue alone, it’s a men’s issue.”

Last week the It’s On Us campaign continued its onslaught on campus sexual violence by releasing guidance to draft sexual assault guidelines, handle reports of assault, promote prevention, and outline exactly what “consent” means.

It is a little early to tell whether or not these guidelines and the new focus on changing college rape culture will have a noticeable effect, but since every education institution in the U.S. is legally obligated to follow Title IX policies, I’d say change is in the air.

This is only the beginning, though. While sexual assault on college campuses is more common and also more ignored than elsewhere in society, it is by no means the only place rape culture runs rampant.

But what exactly is rape culture? It’s where rape is widely recognized and accepted as a normal part of society. Where, instead of trying to prevent rape, victims are blamed. Rape, unfortunately, has become normalized in American society. The word “rape” can be heard to describe anything but the act itself, and there has been more than one occurrence of assault recorded and uploaded to the internet. As if showing themselves raping someone will give the uploader fame.

No, college is definitely not the only place rape culture needs to disappear. It is also not the only place that things like the Title IX developments may not be taken seriously.

By the time kids get to college, they have had at least seventeen years of rape culture exposure. They grew up in gender roles that encouraged male dominance and female submissiveness. They grew up being told that a girl who dresses in a short dress is “slutty” or “asking for it.” They watched movies like The Hangover where being roofied was turned into a comedy. When they finally set foot on a college campus for the first time, they had years of societal expectations ingrained into their heads.

Now, while many college students are eager to have their minds opened and changed by their chosen institution, not all are willing to let go of the beliefs they got from their parents and relatives. “It’s On Us” will no doubt have some positive effects on the number of sexual assault cases on campuses, and it is a sure sign that rape culture can be changed, but it is just one of the steps that needs to be taken.

It should also be noted that, along with rape culture existing outside the college campus, women are by no means the only ones who suffer sexual assaults. It is a truth that is not widely acknowledged that men get raped too. But, as I said before, men are brought up to be dominant and therefore are too afraid to admit a woman assaulted them. When we, in the words of Emma Watson, “see gender as a spectrum, rather than two sets of opposing ideals,” assault initiated by both genders, and the rape culture in which those assaults are normalized, will end.

If you would like more information on Title IX and its guidelines, go here.

Morgan McMurray

Morgan McMurray is an editor and gender equality blogger based in Seattle, Washington. A 2013 graduate of Iowa State University, she has a Bachelor of Arts in English, Journalism, and International Studies. She spends her free time writing, reading, teaching dance classes, and binge-watching Netflix. Contact Morgan at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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