Sexual Assault

A New Playbook for College Athletes: Consent, Intervention and Prevention

PUBLISHED 5/5/2026 by

June 2026 will mark the 54th anniversary of Title IX, the 1972 federal law barring sex-based discrimination in education, ensuring equal participation in sports and prohibiting sexual violence in educational programs receiving federal funding.

But even though Title IX passed more than half a century ago, and significantly more women now go to college than men, gender-based violence is still rampant among college students. Thirteen percent of U.S. college students experience rape or sexual assault during their time on (or off) campus. For women, that number doubles: 26.4 percent of women (and 6.8 percent of men) undergraduates experience sexual violence. Young women are especially vulnerable, compared to older grad students, and women college students aged 18 to 24 are three times more likely to experience gender-based violence than women in general.

Most colleges and universities have standard anti-sexual violence training during freshman orientation (often just required videos or something students click through online), but this information is often quickly forgotten or not practical enough for students to easily apply to their own lives and interactions. The nonprofit sexual assault prevention organization It’s On Us is seeking to change that with the The Playbook 2.0, a research-based workshop series for college athletes.

When Power Protects Abuse: Eric Swalwell Accusations Reveal Architecture of Male Entitlement in Congress

PUBLISHED 4/29/2026 by

When survivors of Jeffrey Epstein stood in the Capitol during the State of the Union earlier this year, we were meant to read it as a sign that this Congress takes the sexual exploitation of women and children seriously. But weeks later, that symbolism rings hollow to anyone who watched Kevin McCarthy appear on television, bluntly telling the world that “every member of Congress” knew about allegations against Eric Swalwell.

Let’s sit with that for a moment. Lawmakers invited Epstein survivors into the chamber, while simultaneously elevating a colleague with his own credibly documented history of violence against young women—one who was until very recently, positioning himself as California’s next governor.

If we cannot connect those two facts, we are not serious about addressing these issues.

Keeping Score: Pennsylvania ERA Secures Abortion Rights Win; Civil Rights Groups Investigate Trump Admin Delays in Childcare Payments; Senate Upholds Near-Total VA Abortion Ban

PUBLISHED 4/23/2026 by

In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in this biweekly roundup.

This week:
—In a landmark ruling shaped by Pennsylvania’s ERA, a state court struck down a decades-old ban on using Medicaid funds for abortion.
—Trump continued to attack voting rights, threatening mail-in ballots and moving towards a nationalized registration database full of errors.
—An estimated 8 million people attended the latest “No Kings” protests.
—A Michigan court ruled that the state’s Pregnancy Exclusion law, which prevents providers from honoring pregnant women’s documented end-of-life decisions, violates a voter-approved 2022 constitutional amendment.
—A federal judge blocked RFK Jr.’s changes to routine vaccination schedules.
—The Supreme Court ruled against Colorado’s ban on dangerous “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ youth.
—Housing markets are declining in states with abortion bans as young people leave or avoid those areas.
—Senators demand the Trump Administration release lifesaving Title X funding.
—Twenty-five states received a failing grade on access to sexual and reproductive healthcare.
—High levels of contamination were found in braiding hair.
—Women are driven away from coaching college sports by pay inequities and other systemic barriers.

… and more.

Silence Should Never Be the Price of Progress

PUBLISHED 4/20/2026 by

Dolores Huerta’s revelation lays bare a painful truth too many women already know: Silence is often the price of progress.

For generations, women—especially women of color—have been expected to absorb harm to uphold institutions, movements and powerful men. “La lucha” is always supposed to come first. Huerta was forced to carry that burden alone for decades.

This dynamic is not unique to one movement or one moment. It is embedded in the very structures that shape our society. Women are told, implicitly and explicitly, that speaking out will jeopardize the greater good. That calling attention to harm, even violence, will derail progress. And so many stay quiet, carrying the weight alone, believing their silence is necessary for something bigger than themselves.

I’ve witnessed this reality firsthand, in my own family, in workplaces, and in the stories women share when they finally feel safe enough to speak.

We cannot continue to treat harm as collateral damage in the pursuit of progress. Movements rooted in social justice must also practice it internally. That starts with listening to survivors without judgment, creating environments where speaking out is met with support rather than skepticism, and recognizing that accountability strengthens movements—it does not weaken them.

A future where women are not asked to sacrifice their dignity for progress is not just possible—it is necessary.

Eric Swalwell and the Persistent Problem of Silent Complicity

PUBLISHED 4/20/2026 by

The Eric Swalwell scandal is an altogether familiar and tired exercise: When allegations surface against a powerful man, the people around him scramble to distance themselves, downplay what they knew, or deny any knowledge at all. And yet, time and again, these cases are described as “open secrets.”

The real question is not just what he did, but what the people around him saw, heard and chose not to act on.

This is where the conversation needs to shift. For decades, sexual assault prevention educators have argued that we need to move beyond the perpetrator-victim binary and focus on the role of bystanders: What could colleagues have done? What kept them from speaking up?

The pressure to be “one of the guys,” to not rock the boat, to protect friendships or careers, remains enormously powerful. If we are serious about preventing abuse, institutions like Congress need to do more than react after the fact. They need to equip people, especially men, with the tools, the permission and the expectation to intervene before harm escalates.

I Want to Be Obsolete. Instead, I’m Afraid to Teach.

PUBLISHED 4/3/2026 by

I want to be obsolete. I want to walk into a classroom full of students excited to learn feminist histories and begin by marveling at how far we’ve come—how unthinkable it now feels that a president once demeaned women, faced dozens of credible accusations of sexual violence, and still rose to the highest office in the country. I want that version of this story to feel distant, resolved, finished.

Instead, I walk into my gender, women and sexuality studies classes scanning for signs of hostility—wondering who might be recording, who might be there to report me, who might see my teaching not as scholarship but as something to punish.

Teaching about marginalized communities, especially through a feminist, anti-racist lens, now carries real risk: of being surveilled, doxxed, harassed or silenced. Books are banned, curricula are targeted, and the very act of naming systems of power is treated as a threat.

And yet, I keep teaching. I keep showing students that what they are experiencing is not individual failure but the result of structural forces—and that those forces can be challenged. I tell them their voices matter, their rage is justified, and their histories deserve to be known.

I would rather be obsolete. But as long as these attacks persist, our work is far from done.

Women Make Our Movements Powerful. They Shouldn’t Have to Suffer in Silence.

PUBLISHED 3/21/2026 by

A New York Times investigation released this week broke news of shocking sexual abuse allegations against labor leader César Chávez—from two women who were young teenagers at the time, and from Dolores Huerta, our long-time Ms. advisor, Feminist Majority Foundation (publisher of Ms.) board member, friend, and feminist and labor icon who co-founded the United Farm Workers with Chávez.

In fighting the culture that makes these actions not only possible, but permissible—and that encourages women like Huerta to remain silent for over 60 years—we must consider the role of men.

Men, argues Ms. contributor Jackson Katz, are essential to shifting the narrative. In describing the case of Gisèle Pelicot, a woman who had been secretly drugged by her husband and set up to be raped by dozens of men over a 10-year period, Katz mentions the evocative nickname the case acquired in French media reports: Monsieur Tout-le-monde. Mr. Everyman. 

If the 50 men who assaulted Pelicot were just “ordinary men” (“many were married and had kids. They were blue- and white-collar workers: a restaurant manager, nurse, computer technician, prison guard, firefighter, journalist, soldier,” Katz writes), then consequently, every man has a role to play in dismantling systemic violence against women.

A Reckoning Long Overdue: Dolores Huerta’s Moment of Truth Must Also Be Ours

PUBLISHED 3/20/2026 by

Civil rights icon Dolores Huerta has shared a devastating truth she carried alone for 60 years: that her closest colleague, mentor, boss and the internationally revered face of the farmworker movement, César Chávez, sexually abused her. As she approaches her 96th birthday, and in the wake of a New York Times investigation revealing that she was not alone—that Chávez also preyed upon other young women, including underage girls—Dolores made the painful, courageous decision that she could no longer keep this secret.

Across Latino, immigrant, labor, civil rights and farmworker communities—and far beyond—hearts broke and jaws dropped. César Chávez had ascended to the pinnacle of untouchable legend. And from that height, there was a long, painful fall.

There will be many debates about what comes next: what to do with the written history, the plazas, streets, schools, parks and holidays that bear Chávez’s name; how to reconcile the image so many of us learned with the disturbing portrait described by Dolores and the other survivors. I will leave the deeper historical reckoning to others.

But it feels both fitting and just that the holiday bearing his name be revised to Farmworkers Day—El Día del Campesino—and that every boulevard, park and street honor Dolores Huerta instead.

The Latest Cache of Epstein Files Haven’t (and Won’t) Spark Wall Street’s #MeToo Moment

PUBLISHED 3/19/2026 by

In 2010, a 28-year-old woman working at the London branch of a Wall Street bank was leaving the office around 10 p.m. when a colleague pushed her against a wall and tried to forcibly kiss her. “A cab driver saw what was happening and physically pulled him off me,” the woman, who asked not to be named for fear of repercussions, told me. She reported the incident the next day to her manager, who told her she “should dress for the job I want” and not “like a stripper.” The women quit a month later. “I just wanted out,” she said. “I was mortified.”

What is notable about this story is how common it is. Even now, she said, you can speak to almost any woman who has spent time working in finance and she will know someone who has been harassed or assaulted. Often she has her own story.

That culture, and Wall Street’s willingness to perpetuate it, is back in the spotlight after the latest release of emails linked to Jeffrey Epstein, which are reviving scrutiny of his extensive connections across the industry.

In Her Own Words: Dolores Huerta on Surviving Abuse, Speaking Out at 96 and Honoring the Movement Beyond One Man

PUBLISHED 3/18/2026 by

In the wake of newly reported sexual abuse allegations against labor leader César Chávez, our hearts are with our long-time Ms. advisor, Feminist Majority Foundation (publisher of Ms.) board member, friend, and feminist and labor icon Dolores Huerta. The fact that she felt she had to bear this in silence speaks to the layers of harm that women who suffer sexual assault must bear.

In the wake of going public for the first time, Huerta writes, “I have never identified myself as a victim, but I now understand that I am a survivor—of violence, of sexual abuse, of domineering men who saw me, and other women, as property, or things to control.”

“The knowledge that he hurt young girls sickens me. My heart aches for everyone who suffered alone and in silence for years. There are no words strong enough to condemn those deplorable actions that he did. César’s actions do not reflect the values of our community and our movement.”