Girls actress-creator Lena Dunham released a sexual assault public service announcement (PSA) Wednesday morning, dedicating it to a Stanford University graduate student who was raped in January 2015.
Dunham was joined by her Girls castmates Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke, and Zosia Mamet in the short clip, which she posted to her Twitter account Wednesday.
“According to the CDC, 1 in 5 women will be sexually assaulted during her lifetime,” actress Zosia Mamet says in the clip.
“This isn’t a secret. It’s reality,” the women continue, taking turns speaking. “So why is our default reaction as a society to disbelieve, or silence, or to shame? What if we chose to turn towards those in need, instead of away?”
Dunham posted the PSA to Twitter, adding the caption: “I dedicate this to the brave survivor in the Stanford case who has given so much to change the conversation.”
Dunham herself claims to be a survivor of sexual assault.
In her memoir Not That Kind of Girl, the 30-year-old actress accused a “mustachioed campus Republican” named Barry of raping her on Oberlin College property while she was a 19-year-old student at the school.
A subsequent investigation by Breitbart News cleared “Barry” of Dunham’s rape allegations. But the actress waited months before finally admitting that she had wrongly accused an innocent man.
Dunham has been celebrated for being an outspoken sexual assault activist — even though she refused to press charges against her rapist and failed to cooperate with Oberlin College campus law enforcement and local authorities, even after the school launched an official investigation into Dunham’s charges.
Twenty-year-old Stanford University freshman Brock Turner was convicted of three counts of sexual assault this month and sentenced to six months in county jail and three years probation. The relatively light sentence — Turner faced up to 14 years in jail — caused considerable outrage across social media and led to an online petition to remove the judge from the case.
The 23-year-old victim of the assault posted a lengthy letter about the trauma she suffered on Buzzfeed, where it has since been shared more than 12 million times.
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @jeromeehudson