Home: Sexual Assault Awareness Month: Home

Sexual Assault Awareness

Local Organizations


Family Services’ professional staff and trained, compassionate volunteers provide crucial services to individuals who have experienced a sexual assault, whether the assault occurred recently or if the incident happened many years ago.	The North Carolina Coalition Against Sexual Assault is an inclusive, statewide alliance working to end sexual violence through education, advocacy, and legislation.

National Organizations


The National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) is the leading nonprofit in providing information and tools to prevent and respond to sexual violence.	RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) is the nation's largest anti-sexual violence organization. RAINN created and operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline and also carries out programs to prevent sexual violence, help survivors, and ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice

National Advocacy Campaigns


For the past 20 years, Peace Over Violence has run its Denim Day campaign on a Wednesday in April in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month. The campaign began after a ruling by the Italian Supreme Court where a rape conviction was overturned because the justices felt that since the victim was wearing tight jeans she must have helped the person who raped her remove her jeans, thereby implying consent.	Launched in September 2014, It’s On Us is a national movement to end sexual assault. The campaign was launched following recommendations from the White House Task Force to Prevent Sexual Assault that noted the importance of engaging everyone in the conversation to end sexual violence.	Our Mission as a charitable 501(c)3 Foundation is to end sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, sexual abuse and all other forms of sexual violence. We serve to create safe communities and respectful relationships through awareness events and initiatives. People of all backgrounds around the world are taking back their voices by speaking out against these crimes and taking a stand through Take Back The Night.

Available Online - eBooks

The Beginning and End of Rape by Sarah Deer
ISBN: 9781452945743

Publication Date: 2015-01-01

Violence against Native women is historical and political, bounded by oppression and colonial violence. This book, like all of Sarah Deer's work, is aimed at engaging the problem head-on--and ending it. The Beginning and End of Rape collects and expands the powerful writings in which Deer, who played a crucial role in the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act in 2013, has advocated for cultural and legal reforms to protect Native women from endemic sexual violence and abuse.
Campus Sexual Assault by Lauren J. Germain
ISBN: 9781421419060

Publication Date: 2016-04-05

In Campus Sexual Assault, Lauren J. Germain focuses attention on the post-sexual assault experiences of twenty-six college women. She reframes conversations about sexual violence and student agency on American college campuses by drawing insight directly from the stories of how survivors responded individually to attacks, as well as how and why peers, family members, and school, medical, and civil authorities were (or were not) engaged in addressing the crimes.
Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown
ISBN: 9781849352611

Publication Date: 2017-03-20

In the tradition of Octavia Butler, here is radical self-help, society-help, and planet-help to shape the futures we want. Change is constant. The world, our bodies, and our minds are in a constant state of flux. They are a stream of ever-mutating, emergent patterns. Rather than steel ourselves against such change, Emergent Strategy teaches us to map and assess the swirling structures and to read them as they happen, all the better to shape that which ultimately shapes us, personally and politically. A resolutely materialist spirituality based equally on science and science fiction: a wild feminist and afro-futurist ride! adrienne maree brown, co-editor of Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements, is a social justice facilitator, healer, and doula living in Detroit.
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander; Cornel West (Introduction by)
ISBN: 9781595588197

Publication Date: 2012-01-16

Once in a great while a book comes along that changes the way we see the world and helps to fuel a nationwide social movement. The New Jim Crow is such a book. Praised by Harvard Law professor Lani Guinier as "brave and bold," this book directly challenges the notion that the election of Barack Obama signals a new era of colorblindness. With dazzling candor, legal scholar Michelle Alexander argues that "we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it." By targeting black men through the War on Drugs and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control—relegating millions to a permanent second-class status—even as it formally adheres to the principle of colorblindness.
Pushout: the criminalization of Black girls in schools by Monique W. Morris
ISBN: 9781620971208

Publication Date: 2016-03-29

Fifteen-year-old Diamond stopped going to school the day she was expelled for lashing out at peers who constantly harassed and teased her for something everyone on the staff had missed: she was being trafficked for sex. After months on the run, she was arrested and sent to a detention center for violating a court order to attend school. Black girls represent 16 percent of female students but almost half of all girls with a school-related arrest. The first trade book to tell these untold stories, Pushout exposes a world of confined potential and supports the growing movement to address the policies, practices, and cultural illiteracy that push countless students out of school and into unhealthy, unstable, and often unsafe futures.
Sexual Assault by Sheila Miller
ISBN: 9781536105360

Publication Date: 2016-01-01

Sexual victimization is highly prevalent in the United States, with 63% of women and 24% of men reporting experiences of sexual victimization in their lifetime. Given the wide range of deleterious outcomes associated with sexual victimization investigations focused on identifying factors associated with negative health outcomes stemming from sexual victimization have great clinical and public health significance. This book provides new research on the prevalence, health effects and coping strategies of sexual assault.
Sexual Assault in the Military by Shawn Woodham
ISBN: 9781631170164

Publication Date: 2013-01-01

This book examines how the Department of Defense and its Armed Services--the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force (the Services) respond to Service members who report having been sexually assaulted and how it investigates and disciplines Service members accused of perpetrating sexual assault. This book also reviews how the military educates Service members and trains military criminal investigators and military lawyers about sexual assault offenses. The topic is both relevant and timely, as Congress is currently considering ways to address this issue.
Trauma Stewardship by Laura van Dernoot Lipsky; Connie Burk
ISBN: 9781605092638

Publication Date: 2009-05-01

A longtime trauma worker, Laura van Dernoot Lipsky offers a deep and empathetic survey of the often-unrecognized toll taken on those working to make the world a better place. We may feel tired, cynical, or numb or like we can never do enough. These, and other symptoms, affect us individually and collectively, sapping the energy and effectiveness we so desperately need if we are to benefit humankind, other living things, and the planet itself. In Trauma Stewardship, we are called to meet these challenges in an intentional way--to keep from becoming overwhelmed by developing a quality of mindful presence.

Books in Gramley Library

Conquest by Andrea Smith; Winona LaDuke (Foreword by)
Call Number: E98 .W8 S62 2005

ISBN: 0896087441

Publication Date: 2008-04-01

In "Conquest," Smith places Native American women at the center of her analysis of sexual violence, challenging both conventional definitions of the term and conventional responses to the problem. Beginning with the impact of the abuses inflicted on Native American children at state-sanctioned boarding schools from the 1880s to the 1980s, Smith adroitly expands our conception of violence to include environmental racism, population control and the widespread appropriation of Indian cultural practices by whites and other non-natives.
Crank by Ellen Hopkins
Call Number: Reading Room - Hopkins

ISBN: 9781416995135

Publication Date: 2010-06-15

This is a story about a monster. Not a dragon or a mythological beast, but a very real, very destructive monster--crystal meth--that takes hold of seventeen-year-old Kristina Snow and transforms her into her reckless alter-ego Bree. Based on her own daughter's addiction to crystal meth, Ellen Hopkins' novel-in-verse is a vivid, transfixing look into teenage drug use. Told in Kristina's voice, it provides a realistic portrayal of the tortured logic of an addict.
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
Call Number: PS3553.I78 H6 1994

ISBN: 067943335X

Publication Date: 1994-04-26

In hardcover for the first time--on the tenth anniversary of its initial publication--the greatly admired and bestselling book about a young girl growing up in the Latino section of Chicago. Sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deeply joyous, this novel depicts a new American landscape through its multiple characters.
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Call Number: PS3619 .E26 L68 2002

ISBN: 0316666343

Publication Date: 2002-07-03

"My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973." So begins the story of Susie Salmon, who is adjusting to her new home in heaven, a place that is not at all what she expected, even as she is watching life on earth continue without her -- her friends trading rumors about her disappearance, her killer trying to cover his tracks, her grief-stricken family unraveling.
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
Call Number: PZ7.A54385 Sp 2011

ISBN: 9780312674397

Publication Date: 2011-05-10

The first ten lies they tell you in high school. "Speak up for yourself--we want to know what you have to say." From the first moment of her freshman year at Merryweather High, Melinda knows this is a big fat lie, part of the nonsense of high school. She is friendless, outcast, because she busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, so now nobody will talk to her, let alone listen to her. As time passes, she becomes increasingly isolated and practically stops talking altogether. Only her art class offers any solace, and it is through her work on an art project that she is finally able to face what really happened at that terrible party: she was raped by an upperclassman, a guy who still attends Merryweather and is still a threat to her. Her healing process has just begun when she has another violent encounter with him. But this time Melinda fights back, refuses to be silent, and thereby achieves a measure of vindication.

Films in Gramley Library

Boys Don't Cry
Call Number: Salem College Library Film Collection - PN1997 .B69 2000

Publication Date: 2000

A transgendered youth starts living as a man, and assumes the name Brandon Teena. He moves to a tiny Nebraska town and begins making new friends under his new identity. All goes well until his new friends discover his secret. Based on a true story about hope, fear, and the courage it takes to be yourself.
The Color Purple
Call Number: Salem College Library Film Collection - PS3573.A425 C6 2003

Publication Date: 1985 (DVD 2003)

The heart-wrenching story of a young black girl in the early 20th century who's forced into a brutal marriage and separated from her sister.

The Salem Academy and College Sex Discrimination, Harassment, and Related Sexual Misconduct Policy provides the following definitions:

“Sexual Harassment” means conduct on the basis of sex that satisfies one or more of the following:

an employee of Salem conditioning the provision of an aid, benefit, or service on an individual’s participation in unwelcome sexual conduct (commonly referred to quid pro quo harassment);

unwelcome conduct determined by a reasonable person to be so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively denies a person equal access to Salem’s Education Program or Activity; or

“Sexual Assault” is any sexual act directed against another person, without the Consent of the person, including instances where the person is incapable of giving consent. Sexual Assault can occur between individuals of the same or different sexes and/or genders. Sexual Assault includes the following:

Rape: The carnal knowledge of a person, without the consent of the person, including instances where the person is incapable of giving consent because of his/her age or because of his/her temporary or permanent mental or physical incapacity;

Sodomy: Oral or anal sexual intercourse with another person, without the consent of the person, including instances where the person is incapable of giving consent because of his/her age or because of his/her temporary or permanent mental or physical incapacity;

Sexual Assault with an Object: To use an object or instrument to unlawfully penetrate, however slightly, the genital or anal opening of the body of a person, without the consent of the person, including instances where the person is incapable of giving consent because of his/her age or because of his/her temporary or permanent mental or physical incapacity;

Fondling: The touching of the private body parts of a person for the purpose of sexual gratification, without the consent of the person, including instances where the person is incapable of giving consent because of his/her age or because of his/her temporary or permanent mental or physical incapacity;

Incest: Sexual intercourse between persons who are related to each other within the degrees wherein marriage is prohibited by law; and

Statutory Rape: Sexual intercourse with a person who is under the statutory age of consent.

“Dating Violence,” as defined in 34 U.S.C. § 12291(a)(10): violence committed by a person—(A) who is or has been in a social relationship of a romantic or intimate nature with the victim; and (B) where the existence of such a relationship shall be determined based on a consideration of the following factors: (i) the length of the relationship; (ii) the type of relationship; and (iii) the frequency of interaction between the persons involved in the relationship;

“Domestic Violence,” as defined in 34 U.S.C. § 12291(a)(8): felony or misdemeanor crimes of violence committed by a current or former spouse or intimate partner of the victim, by a person with whom the victim shares a child in common, by a person who is cohabitating with or has cohabitated with the victim as a spouse or intimate partner, by a person similarly situated to a spouse of the victim under the domestic or family violence laws of the jurisdiction receiving grant monies, or by any other person against an adult or youth victim who is protected from that person’s acts under the domestic or family violence laws of the jurisdiction; or

"Stalking,” as defined in 34 U.S.C. § 12291(a)(30): engaging in a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to (A) fear for their safety or the safety of others; or (B) suffer substantial emotional distress.

"Retaliation" means (1) any adverse action, including direct and indirect intimidation, threats, coercion, discrimination, or harassment (including charges for conduct violations that do not involve sex discrimination or harassment but that arise out of the same facts or circumstances as a report, Formal Complaint alleging those behaviors) that is (2) threatened or taken against a person (a) for the purpose of interfering with any right or privilege secured by Title IX or this Policy; or (b) because the person has made a report, Formal Complaint,
testified, assisted, or participated or refused to participate in any manner in an investigation, proceeding, or hearing related to Title IX or this Policy.

“Consent” is informed, freely and actively given, mutually understandable words or actions that indicate a willingness and readiness to participate in mutually agreed upon sexual activity. Consent is mutually understandable when a reasonable person would consider the words or actions of the parties to have manifested a clear and unambiguous agreement between them to engage in certain conduct with each other. Consent cannot be gained by ignoring or acting in spite of the objections of another.

If you or someone you know may have been a victim of these behaviors or any other type of violence,
you are strongly encouraged to seek immediate assistance.

To report an incident of sexual assault to Salem College, please contact the Title IX Coordinator at TitleIX@salem.edu.
You may also obtain assistance from Salem College Public Safety 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, located at Main Hall (Lower Level, Rear Entrance) and available by phone at 336-917-5555.
Confidential campus resources include Counseling Services and the Chaplain.
For emergency safety needs, call 911 to seek immediate help from law enforcement.
For emergency medical evaluation, exams, and treatment, hospital emergency services can provide treatment by sexual assault nurse examiners who are trained to provide this special care, support, and forensic evidence collection.

2022 SAAM: Building Safe Online Spaces Together

Building Safe Online Communities

Additional Resources:

Online Harassment Resources

Confidential Resources

Salem Resources

Academy Counseling Services: (336) 917-5518
College Counseling Services: (336) 721-2625
Chaplain’s Office: (336) 917-5087
Salem Health Services: (336) 721-2713

Local Resources

Forsyth Co. Family Services Sexual Assault Crisis Line
(336) 722-4457

National Resources

National Sexual Assault Hotline: (800) 656-4673
National Sexual Assault Online Hotline

Sexual Assault Awareness Month

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month

Get Library Help

Sexual Assault Awareness

2022 SAAM: Building Safe Online Spaces Together

Confidential Resources