Obama to Announce Campaign to Prevent Campus Sexual Assaults

WASHINGTON - President Obama has tried to use the power of his office to combat sexual assaults on college campuses. On Friday, he is getting some help.

The president is scheduled to announce a nationwide public service campaign aimed at urging young people to do more to prevent campus sexual assaults. The White House promises the campaign will enlist celebrities whom can mobilize youth behind the mission.

The campaign is called 'It's on Us,' a message that is intended to make sure that everyone feels a responsibility to confront the problem of sexual assault.

It is aimed directly at college campuses, but officials said the recent focus on incidents of domestic violence by N.F.L. players should underscore the need for the public campaign.

Officials said the celebrities involved would know how to get through to the millennial generation, but they declined to reveal all but one of the names in advance of Friday's event at the White House. But they said college-age students will be familiar with them all. The one name they did release: Kevin Love, a center for the Cleveland Cavaliers of the N.B.A.

Mr. Obama's White House has been aggressively seeking to fight the growing number of sexual assaults at the nation's colleges. In April, after a series of highly publicized rapes on college campuses, the administration released guidelines aimed at pressuring universities to do more.

A task force created by the White House has been advertising with a '1is2many' campaign that is intended to drive home the message that sexual assaults will always be a problem on college campuses. The task force had urged colleges to conduct surveys to document the extent of the problem on their campuses.

And in May, the Department of Education released the names of 55 colleges and universities that are being investigated for their handling of sexual assault complaints. The release of the information was intended as another pressure tactic.

The new effort, to be announced by both Mr. Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., will encourage young people - especially men - to work to prevent sexual assaults.

Officials said the president's public service announcement would initially be shown on the big screens at many college sporting events and on cable networks like MTV and VH1, which are watched by college-age students. Officials said they were in discussions with other broadcast and cable networks to show the advertisement.

The president will also introduce an 'It's on Us' logo on Friday, officials said, adding that Electronic Arts, a popular video game maker, has pledged to include the logo in many of its games. There is a campaign website, too: itsonus.org.