'It’s never, never, never, never, never okay to touch her without her consent,” said Joe Biden. Biden to students: 'No means no'

During his 36 years in the Senate, one of Vice President Joe Biden’s signature issues was protecting women from abuse. Now, he’s taking that cause to an audience whose members weren’t even born when he took his first oath of office: college students.

The vice president is speaking out on behalf of an Education Department initiative to address problems like rape and sexual violence on schools across the nation, launched in the wake of a Title IX complaint filed by a group of Yale students last month. Biden elevated the issue with a passionate speech to undergraduates at the University of New Hampshire on Monday, and joined a conference call with university presidents and reporters Wednesday.


“Look guys – all you guys in the audience – no matter what a girl does, no matter how she’s dressed, no matter how much she’s had to drink – it’s never, never, never, never, never okay to touch her without her consent,” Biden told a rapt crowd on the Durham, N.H. campus. “This doesn’t make you a man – it makes you a coward. A flat-out coward.”

The speech came just days after the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights announced it would investigate a complaint filed by 16 Yale University students in March. The students accused the university of failing to adequately address sexual harassment complaints, a violation of the Title IX statute.

New Hampshire junior Thomas Gounley, who was in the audience for the speech, said Biden is clearly passionate about the topic. While a few students protested before the event against the administration’s actions on Libya, he said, Biden’s talk drew students from both ends of the political spectrum — and could lead to a more favorable view of the Obama administration.

“I don’t ultimately think people going to the polls next year will vote based on the issue of sexual violence,” Gounley said. “But I do think this definitely puts the current administration in the view of college students a little more. It was a powerful speech.”

Alexandra Brodsky, one of the Yale complainants, told POLITICO Biden’s speech reinforced that sexual violence on college campuses is not just a “niche interest” but “needs to be a national priority — a mainstream priority.”

Though the White House’s outreach didn’t seem tainted by political motivations, she added, ” the bottom line is, no matter what intentions the administration has, I appreciate it. An issue like rape is controversial, so I have to believe that there is genuineness behind that, and it does make me more likely to vote for this administration as well.”

Lynn Rosenthal, White House adviser on violence against women, said the vice president’s speech struck a chord with college-age men and women nationwide. “The feedback has been absolutely incredible – it’s circulating all over the web [and] really resonated with young women and with young men,” she told POLITICO on Thursday.

Though the vice president had a solid Senate record and was nationally known for legislation in defense of women, Rita Smith, executive director of the advocacy group National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said Biden’s White House stature gives him “a much bigger stage now than he had as a senator.”

Biden “definitely [has] got a broader audience as vice president and that helps a lot” with organizations like hers, Smith said. “From the minute this administration walked in the door, they have been very connected to groups in our field, helping us stay informed, seeking advice, hosting meetings.”

Politically, Biden’s advocacy on campus could be interpreted as a goodwill gesture to women’s organizations and college students — key constituencies on the left that helped propel President Barack Obama to the White House in 2008, but who have become frustrated with his compromises since taking office.

“I have protested outside of this White House more times than I can count, [but] given Vice President Biden’s leadership on the epidemic against sexual violence, I’m almost ready to deliver flowers to this White House,” said Erin Matson, the action vice president of the National Organization for Women. “This White House takes many steps to try and communicate with organizations and that’s a health thing, even in areas where we disagree – it’s good to have the lines of communication open.”

But GOP pollster David Winston said the vice president lending his weight to a sensitive issue could lead voters to conclude the White House is not concentrating exclusively on issue number one: the economy.

“At this point in time, given the negotiations going on in terms of funding the government, timing is certainly complicated,” said Winston, who believes that the lack of focus on key issues was a major reason Democrats lost the House in November. “When Obama or Biden go off on other topics, it reinforces the impression that they’re not focused on the issue that the White House doesn’t understand what people are most concerned about.”

But the vice president vowed to keep fighting to prevent violence against women.

“I’ll keep this going until we make a gigantic dent in the culture and in the occurrence,” Biden said on a conference call with university and college presidents on Wednesday. “Of the things I’ve done in my career, the thing that I care most about, the thing I am proudest of is the Violence Against Women Act.”