This time two years ago, our Co-Founder & Executive Director, Chai Shenoy, testified at a DC Council hearing about the overwhelming need to prevent sexual harassment & assault on the DC public transportation system. CASS’s testimony stemmed from hundreds of incidents of public sexual harassment that CASS had collected over the years — at least 30 percent of which had taken place on or around transit stations, trains, buses or bus stops.

Just a few months later, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), responded by introducing its first-ever campaign to combat sexual harassment on metro.

WMATA undertook our advice to implement a three-pronged approach to curtailing sexual harassment and assault on public transportation, including: 1) A public awareness campaign (which Feministing just wrote about!); 2) Data collection on incidences of sexual harassment and assault; and 3) An all-staff training for WMATA employees on how to address and respond to incidences of sexual harassment and assault on public transit.

CASS is currently working with WMATA to ensure effective implementation of its all-staff training — a project that the CASS community has made is clear is vitally needed.