By Victor Ordonez

The United Student Government (USG) subcommittee on sexual misconduct has begun to work closely with the Fordham chapter of the It’s On Us Campaign. The campaign aims to combat sexual misconduct on college campuses, according to Maddy Allison, FCRH’19, the campus organizer for the Fordham chapter.

“The campaign’s goal is to end sexual violence and harassment on college campuses,” said Allison. “We are targeting college campuses specifically because of the culture of non-consensual sex at a lot of these campuses.”

The It’s On Us campaign has four main goals, according to Allison. The campaign seeks for others to recognize that non-consensual sex is sexual assault, help identify situations in which sexual assault may occur, intervene in situations where consent has not or cannot be given and create an environment in which sexual assault is unacceptable.

The national charter of It’s On Us was launched in September 2014 following recommendations from the White House Task Force to Prevent Sexual Assault. It is a national nonprofit organization that wants others to realize the importance of engaging everyone in the conversation to end sexual violence, according to the campaign’s website.

“It’s On Us calls on everyone – students, parents, community leaders, and companies – to step up and be a part of the solution,” said Allison.
As far as tangible action, Allison said the campaign aims to host events which will provide consent education and promote bystander intervention. In the past, the campaign has tried to coordinate with USG to form sexual assault seminars for Fordham athletic teams.

“USG and our campaign have very similar goals. However, USG works to do more institutional change, and we are working more on awareness and cultural change,” said Allison. The athletic seminars failed to follow through last semester to Allison’s dismay, but she said that with assistance from USG and proper training, future events would prove successful.

Recently, the campaign has used USG’s resources in an attempt to increase its presence on campus. Starting Oct. 24, the campaign is hosting a string of events at various different locations on Fordham, thanks to USG. The final event, on Oct. 27, will be titled “Candy and Consent” and will take place outside of Finlay Hall. Passerbys will have to submit a card containing a clever way to ask for consent before receiving Halloween candy. Students are able to take the It’s on Us Campaign pledge online at ItsOnUs.org.

Currently, USG has not supplied funds to the campaign, resulting in Allison and her fellow campaign members using out-of-pocket funds for their events. However, Allison said that USG’s resources have been helpful nonetheless.

“We already have a lot of resources from the national campaign, and [USG] has a lot of the bureaucratic resources we need,” said Allison. “They have helped us register space for events this week.”

As of now, the campaign has refrained from attaining club status. “We are still trying to figure out whether it should be a club or not. We are not a club right now nor do we have a club constitution,” said Allison. “It has been nice to work with the subcommittee.”