The issue of sexual assault on college campuses has officially made it to the White House.
According to the Huffington Post, President Barack Obama was expected to sign a presidential memorandum on Wednesday that would establish a task force to investigate and protect young women from sexual assault. The task force will have 90 days to draft recommendations for college to prevent and more adequately respond to incidents of sexual violence, better publicize records of such events and promote governmental agencies to supervise these educational institutions.
The creation of the task force is in response to a report by the White House Council on Women and Girls, which found that as many as one in five women in college have been sexually assaulted, though only 12 percent report the crime. Rape is most common at colleges, the report states, because of the prevalence of drugs and alcohol on campuses. The report also takes issue with responses to sexual assault, identifying police as problematic due to their lack of knowledge on how to handle sex crimes.
According to the report, nearly 22 million American women have been raped in their lifetimes.