Cody McDavis

Focus Areas

Cody McDavis is a lawyer and advocate for sexual and gender-based violence prevention and policy.  His work began in 2014, when he directed a joint effort between the Obama Administration and the NCAA to engage with students across the nation in consent and bystander intervention.  He received the Champion of Change award from the White House in 2016 for this work.  Cody then worked directly with the NCAA for two years to research and implement national policy changes to better prevent acts of sexual violence and gender-based violence as well as protect survivors of such acts.  His efforts led to the Big Sky Conference, where he played NCAA Division I men’s basketball, to be the first in the country to adopt comprehensive policy banning participation of student-athletes that have committed an act of sexual or gender-based violence.  Cody has worked with numerous United States Congressman and Congresswomen, the American Council on Education, and Change.org to lobby the largest educational institutions across the country to adopt stronger policies to prevent occurrences of sexual violence.  Cody’s lobbying efforts with Change.org are supported by more than 215,000 people.

Cody currently serves on the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine (“AMSSM”) Task Force on Sexual Violence and Harassment in Sports, where he is working to develop policies for institutions to provide safer spaces to prevent and report abuse.  He is also working closely with national activist and survivor, Brenda Tracy, to draft sexual violence prevention policies for institutions across the country.  Finally, he recently started his own non-profit, Foundation 42, which provides academic scholarships to students that want to work in the field of sexual and gender-based violence prevention and policy.
 

Cody McDavis was a Solidarity Honoree at the 2019 Voices of Solidarity event.