The Month of April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

Here at Canisius, the peer educator program Step Up! Griffs has been doing tabling activities in the library and showed a screening of the movie "It Happened Here" which shows the story of five girls who faced the backlash from their universities after they reported their sexual assault cases.

The girls went to different universities across the country. Each one talked about why they chose their specific college, most of them said the college they chose to attend was their dream school.

One of the girls, Angie, was a cross country runner at Amherst. She talks about how after she was assaulted, she suffered in silence until after confiding in a friend, the friend encouraged her to report her case. when she went to a counselor at her college, her case was dismissed and not taken seriously. Angie posted a letter to her student newspaper which can be found here.

The second girl, Kylie was at first supported by her college, her attacker even got expelled from their college, but he asked for a repeal and it was granted under the condition of not contacting Kylie, but within an hour of being back on campus he sought her out at the college's dining facility.

since then Kylie has taken a Title IX complaint out against her school and done so much work on UConn campus as well as touring as a speaker to colleges across the country. Her personal website can be found here.

The fourth girl, Carolyn was also a student at UConn who was sexually assaulted. Part of the film shows her discussing the change in the UConn mascot from a friendly husky to a more aggressive version. She wrote an open letter to her college's President and discussed it alongside rape culture. She received immediate backlash and negative comments from students. Following the she filed a Cleary Act complaint, a Title IX complaint and a Title IX lawsuit against her school. Her open letter to the president of UConn can be found here: http://www.thefeministwire.com/2013/04/an-open-let...

The final girl featured was Erica who was drugged by a trusted friend and coworker. Following this incident, she requested a work schedule change because of harassment by her coworker. Her work did not allow for the accommodation and as a result, Erica was forced to quit because the harassment became so bad. She went to her college's (UConn) Community Standards office to file a complaint but it was denied based on lack of evidence. To fight this, Erica joined Kylie and Carolyn on their Title IX complaints.

At Canisius College, the program, Step Up! Griffs serves to use Peer Educators to help other students recognize, identify and intervene in sexual violence situations on campus as well as where they can go on to get help or have someone intervene if they don't feel safe or comfortable intervening themselves. In addition to this, the Peer Educators help run different workshops to inform and educate others.