Issue a public statement from the President that blaming rape victims for crimes committed against them is unacceptable.

As the recent Steubenville rape case came to a close, prominent media outlets across the United States spoke of sympathy for the rapists, portraying them as tragic victims; while the real victim in the case, the young woman who was raped, was portrayed as a drunk, offered no sympathy, accused of ruining the rapists' lives. The lives of young men who made a conscious choice to rape. Unfortunately, this is a series of events which occurs every day in rape cases, both inside and outside the public eye, in the media and among individual citizens. We ask President Obama to issue a personal, public statement that this behavior is unacceptable and that it is never appropriate under any circumstances to blame a rape victim for what has happened to them.