Obama, celebrities, launch new effort combating sexual assault at colleges

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WASHINGTON (CNN) — The Obama administration is launching a big new offensive: Combating sexual assault on college campuses.

On Friday, the White House launched "It's On Us" — a campaign aimed at tackling the problem plaguing universities across the country.

The movement — developed from recommendations issued by a White House-ordered task force in April, will seek to raise awareness and educate college students about the issue and what can be done to prevent it.

A top priority

"It's On Us" is a next step in a series taken by the Obama administration to address the problem of sexual assault on college campuses.

In April a White House Task Force released a 20-page report that highlighted what it described as the four most pressing problems in this area:

  • Actually identifying the problem on campuses,
  • Engaging men in prevention measures,
  • Effectively responding to assault where it's reported, and
  • Increasing transparency in the federal government's effort to enforce laws about prosecuting sexual assault cases.

This new campaign will focus on tackling those issues by expanding student-led efforts at individual colleges and partnering with associations including the NCAA and athletic conferences such ast the Big Ten, and large companies including Viacom, which will promote the campaign on MTV, VH1 and BET.

Over 200 colleges have signed on to participate in the campaign, including Dartmouth, University of Michigan and Bates College.

Senior administration officials told reporters that ending sexual assault has been a top priority throughout Obama's presidency.

"Since the very beginning of the administration, the President and Vice President have made it a top priority to end sexual assault. Today one in five women is sexually assaulted while in college," senior Obama officials told reporters on a conference call.

"Most often it happens to her during (the victim's) freshmen or sophomore year by someone she knows. And also most often she doesn't report what happened."

The one-in-five statistic is often cited by the White House when discussing this issue. It is derived from two studies conducted in 2007 and 2009. Many sexual assault instances go unreported, so it is difficult to get a complete count of instances.

Engaging men

A key component of "It's On Us" will be to engage college-aged men in the prevention process, White House officials told reporters.

"While we're going to seek to raise awareness with everyone and encourage everyone to get involved, there's also going to be a special focus on reaching and engaging men," one senior administration official said. That is "based on the social norms research that tells us that young men often overestimate other mens' acceptance of violence."

"Most men in fact are not comfortable with violence against women, but they don't speak out because they believe that other men accept this behavior. By getting men involved we think we can interrupt that way of thinking," they said.

Officials stressed though that above all else, the campaign aims to be "inclusive" — reaching everyone who may be on a college campus from the students to the faculty to the top administrators.

Bringing in the celebrities

In addition to partnering with universities, associations, private companies, etc., the administration will launch a website and a series of public service announcements aiming to provide those on campuses with more information about what can be done to prevent sexual assault.

White House officials told reporters Thursday that several celebrities and athletes had gotten involved in the campaign and would be featured in these PSA's, but declined to give specific names ahead of the campaigns official unveiling on Friday, in which both the President and vice president will participate.

The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2014 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.

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