Helen Benedict, Educating and Exposing Injustice Through Writing

Helen Benedict is an acclaimed writer, professor and advocate for a paradigm shift from the autonomous power and proceedings of the military in society. With a male-dominated culture bereft of outside oversight through prosecution of reported cases of sexual assault out of the eyes and hands of the American public, the institution is responsible for a high frequency and low rate of redress of sexual assault. Helen's expertise as a writer lies in her passion for uncovering truths associated with sexual assault in the military, the experience of women in the military and the ugly truths of war. Her expertise as a professor at Columbia's journalism school lies in her fostering social awareness and a passion for social justice in her students. Her writing inspired not only a class-action lawsuit against the Pentagon and Defense Secretaries Rumsfeld and Gates, but also the Academy Award-nominated documentary, The Invisible War, about the harrowing reality of sexual assault in the U.S. military.