The White House unveiled a new public-service campaign today that aims to combat sexual violence on college campuses through a network of student leaders, advocacy groups and corporations tasked with shifting the way people think about such assaults.

The “It’s On Us” campaign wants everyone to see that it’s his or her responsibility to prevent sexual assault.

“The campaign reflects the belief that sexual assault isn’t just an issue involving a crime committed by a perpetrator against a victim, but one in which the rest of us also have a role to play,” a White House press release says. “We are committed to creating an environment – be it a dorm room, a party, a bar or club, or the greater college campus – where sexual assault is unacceptable and survivors are supported.”

Students walk on UH Manoa campus February 2, 2014.

UH Manoa was one of the many colleges and universities recently investigated for potentially mishandling sexual violence. The school, however, doesn’t appear to have any representatives participating in the White House’s new student-driven campaign to combat college assault.

PF Bentley/Civil Beat


The student representatives are key to bringing the campaign to individual campuses. A key goal involves motivating college men to participate.

But a Civil Beat review of the list of the nearly 200 schools represented in the student-led campaign reveals that Hawaii doesn’t have a single delegate. It’s one of just five states without student representation on the campaign.

Hawaii’s omission from the list is particularly noteworthy because its flagship campus — the University of Hawaii at Manoa — was recently investigated by the U.S. Department of Education’s civil rights office for potentially mishandling sexual violence. It was one of at least 67 colleges and universities included in the federal probe.

Aside from Alaska, whose university system went under investigation in May, Hawaii is the only state included in the federal review that doesn’t have student representation on the “It’s On Us” campaign. A university spokeswoman told Civil Beat that she’s looking into why that is.

When news of UH Manoa’s investigation broke, officials stressed that the probe didn’t necessarily indicate wrongdoing and that the campus, unlike many of the schools on the list, was part of a sample proactively selected by the USDOE to audit Title IX compliance.

But the USDOE, which provided few details about why specific campuses were selected, has stated that the compliance reviews weren’t  random.

And in July, Civil Beat looked at how UH handles sexual violence on its campuses and found that a range of policy shortcomings and resource limitations could be undermining its efforts to combat the problem.

The “It’s On Us” campaign is the latest effort in President Barack Obama’s push to end the epidemic — an initiative that’s included efforts to hold colleges more accountable for sexual assault.

 

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