COLUMBUS – Amid a growing clamor for him to join the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Vice President Joe Biden will visit the Ohio State University campus Thursday for a speech on combating sexual assault.
He will deliver remarks on the importance of preventing sexual assault on college campuses across the country, highlighting the “It’s On Us” sexual assault prevention campaign.
The event seeks to engage students and other members of campus communities in preventing sexual assault, university officials said.
The Columbus Dispatch reports that OSU President Michael Drake today will announce “Buckeyes ACT,” a program under which new require new students will be required, starting in 2016, to undergo training on sexual misconduct and relationship violence at least three times: at their orientation sessions, as part of the First Year Experience program and again in the Second-Year Transformation Experience Program.
The stop in Columbus is part of multi-state swing that comes as Biden is deeply immersed in deliberations with his family and advisers about whether to enter the 2016 presidential race. In recent days, Biden has opened a window into those deliberations, describing his lingering doubts about whether he has the emotional strength to mount a viable campaign just months after his son, Beau, died from brain cancer.
At the same time, he has crisscrossed Florida, Georgia, New York and California, stops that have done little to quell speculation that he’s laying the groundwork for a potential campaign.
At a reception near Los Angeles Tuesday, he was greeted with chants of “Run, Joe, Run,” he brushed them aside and said, “Oh, no, no, no, no.”
During the event, however, he lashed out directly at GOP front-runner Donald Trump, telling Hispanics that Trump’s “sick” message of xenophobia “will not prevail.”
“This will pass — the Trump stuff and that stuff that you’re hearing on the other team,” Biden said.
On Thursday, Biden planned a speech on transportation in Michigan before his stop in Columbus.
Ohio and Michigan are two battleground states that will play key roles in electing the next president.