Amplifying Every Voice

In 2021, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker signed the Massachusetts Campus Safety Act, a law that addresses sexual violence at colleges and universities by strengthening support services for survivors and creating a nationwide sexual assault student survey.

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For Liana Ascolese ’16, ’17MPP, the law's passage was the culmination of years of hard work by her and a dedicated group of fellow advocates — work that she began while a graduate student at the UMass Amherst School of Public Policy (SPP). Today, Ascolese is the national legislative director of the Every Voice Coalition, an organization which held a prominent role in passing the Campus Safety Act and currently works on legislation to address the pervasive problem of sexual assaults of college students.

In her position, Ascolese works to bring the successful Massachusetts bill model to other states and to mentor students to become leaders in the effort. "The political process and the legislative advocacy process can be really inaccessible," she says. "Every Voice's goal is to teach students how to do advocacy work and then to share that knowledge with others. Sometimes giving someone else the opportunity and mentoring them and literally bringing them to the meeting table is all it takes for them to really stand out and be heard."

Ascolese was drawn to the issue of campus assaults in part because of her own history as a survivor of domestic violence. "Growing up in that environment, I’ve always been really cognizant of the ways that people in leadership don’t always look like me or share my experiences, and that definitely had an effect on my life," she explains. "It's always been my goal not only to elect and appoint more leaders who are more diverse and really share the life experiences of their constituents, but also people who have empathy for these situations and will use the political process to break cycles of violence."

Every Voice began in Massachusetts as an informal coalition of students across the state, with Ascolese's involvement tracing back to her time as chair of the Massachusetts College Democrats' Women’s Caucus on campus. In 2016, the caucus turned its energies toward legislation, organizing in support of a bill at the Massachusetts State House that would have created a campus climate survey on sexual assault. Though the bill did not make it to a vote, the effort brought together a coalition of student activists from across the state, including Ascolese and fellow Every Voice cofounders, who joined forces when the bill was refiled in the next legislative session.

The Campus Safety Bill was then amended to include support services for survivors in addition to the campus survey requirement. "We spent that session making a lot of calls, sending a lot of emails, trying to get meetings with a lot of [legislators]," Ascolese says. This time, the House and Senate each passed a version of the proposed law, but a final compromise bill never made it to a full vote before the session's end. "It was like this game of ping pong,” she recalls. "We were running around the State House at 10 o'clock at night, trying to convince people to pass it."

As the 2019-20 legislative session got underway, Every Voice formalized its operations. Ascolese focused on legislative advocacy, drawing from her award-winning capstone project If You Want Something Done, Ask a Woman: How Women College Administrators Implement Effective Title IX Policies to Prevent Sexual Assault.

"The capstone was so valuable," Ascolese notes. "Having done my own original research was super helpful and gave me a lot of credibility in the advocacy process."

After putting together a lobbying team of students and young professionals, Ascolese and her team wrote talking points to ensure consistency in their messaging and used what they had learned about the power structure in the State House to focus Every Voices's efforts. "It was very professionalized, very coordinated," Ascolese says. "We approached people in a really targeted way."

Every Voice secured meetings with about half of the 200 members of the Massachusetts legislature; ultimately, 160 signed on as cosponsors of the bill. The group also organized dozens of students to come to the State House to offer testimony at a hearing on the bill, which ultimately passed in January 2021. "That was a very powerful day," Ascolese recalls. "We had students from all over the state. Our community partners gave very powerful testimony as well to support the survivors’ stories."

Every Voice continues to be involved in the implementation of new laws, Ascolese notes, and is working with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) on the federal Campus Accountability and Safety Act. The organization also recently added its first full-time, paid staff member — National Director Nora Gallo ’20, a 2020 UMass Amherst graduate — and has begun fundraising to support its work."Our students and survivors are such amazing and powerful people and they’ve inspired me so much," Ascolese remarks.

"I’m glad that people across the state, maybe even survivors who were not directly involved with our movement, will see that we’re sending a different signal now from the state level, and that people recognize and believe them and care about them."

The Every Voice Coalition continues its work on campus and recently partnered with student groups on creating the Survivor’s Bill of Rights, which was adopted by the university and is available to view on the Title IX website. UMass Amherst is celebrating the 50th anniversary of Title IX in the coming year.