A Duke sophomore has been named to the White House’s It’s On Us student advisory committee for the 2016-17 academic year.
Benji Satloff is one of 28 college students on the committee, which aims to raise awareness of sexual assault on college campuses and work to end it. His role will be to plan events at Duke that work to change how students think about sexual assault.
“It’s about empowering yourself to be an agent of change,” he said. “Not being part of the problem, but being part of solution.”
The It’s On Us initiative was launched in 2014 by President Barack Obama to increase public knowledge of the prevalence of sexual assaults on college campuses. It is a collaboration with Generation Progress, an organization that promoted solutions to political and social challenges. The campaign asks each American to make a pledge to speak out against sexual assault.
The pledge states that individuals will “recognize that non-consensual sex is sexual assault” as well as “intervene in situations where consent has not or cannot be given.”
Through the committee, Satloff will host events on Duke’s campus in collaboration with Wake Forest and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Although the plans have not been finalized yet, examples of possible activities include screening of “The Hunting Ground,” a documentary showcasing universities’ mishandling of sexual assault cases, and bystander intervention training, he said.
Satloff interned with the It’s On Us campaign at their headquarters in Washington, D.C. this summer. He said that he met incredible people there who inspired him to continue his work in speaking out against sexual assault.
Much of his previous work in preventing sexual assault has involved his fraternity, Kappa Alpha. His pledge class recently made a video in which they took the It’s On Us pledge and challenged other KA chapters across the country to do the same.
“My hope is that we can spread the word, and other frats will want to do it as well,” Satloff said.
He explained that he first became interested in the campaign after watching their commercials on television, which feature famous actors and athletes.
“It’s a very empowering message that I wanted to be a part of,” he said.
Hillel International—the largest Jewish campus organization in the world, of which Satloff is a member—was one of the earliest partners of the It's On Us initiative. Shelia Katz, vice president for social entrepreneurship at Hillel International, noted that she is very proud of Satloff for taking the initiative to get involved with the organization.
"Changing cultural norms will require the engagement and investment of all corners of campus communities," she said.
Katz added that many people have stepped up in the fight against sexual assault but that the entirety of a college campus must be involved to create change.
Recent events have made sexual assault a hot topic on campus. The University is currently facing a Title IX lawsuit brought by a former Duke student as well as two ongoing investigations by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights into Title IX complaints.
To date, the federal government has initiated over 300 investigations into dozens of colleges for potentially violating Title IX—the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in educational settings. This month, the OCR opened a new investigation into Duke's handling of sexual misconduct reports, while a separate probe that was initiated in November 2015 remains open. Also this month, a former Duke student filed a Title IX lawsuit against the University, alleging the school mishandled her sexual misconduct complaint from several years ago. The OCR only releases the names of students who file complaints at the end of its investigations, so at this time it remains unclear whether the lawsuit and either of the two OCR investigations against Duke are connected.
At Duke, Satloff explained that he wants to encourage students to be an ally for those who have suffered from sexual assault and to be vigilant in preventing future assaults.
“I hope that through creating a dialogue this year that we’re going to get more of the conversation started,” he said.
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