As details continue to emerge about the fraternity members who allegedly drugged and gang raped a student at Cornell University in 2024, many hope it could be a reckoning for colleges across the country. The ongoing civil lawsuit may also bring about systemic changes, even as some accuse Cornell of treating the seven defendants too lightly.
‘Safety’ is education’s ‘precondition’
The Cornell chapter of the Chi Phi fraternity house, where the alleged rape took place, has been barred from the school. But a “university’s obligation to the physical safety of its students is not one commitment among several, to be weighed against reputation or litigation exposure,” said the editorial board of The Cornell Daily Sun, Cornell’s student newspaper. Safety on campus is “not adjacent to the educational mission — safety is, in fact, its precondition.” After the allegations emerged, why were “these men allowed to ‘pursue their education in a secure and nourishing environment?’”
The lawsuit also alleges that Cornell offered the accused an “opportunity to mitigate their punishment by writing an essay,” said Rita Omokha at Elle, which prompted widespread backlash. “We need to sit with that for a second, because what does an essay actually repair, remedy or restore?” People “have become so accustomed to institutions failing women that we have started to process these failures the way we process bad weather.” But treating “sexual assault as an academic matter — complete with its charts and facts and figures — offers no respite to the victims who have undergone physical and mental abuse,” said The Cornell Daily Sun.
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‘Full and thorough criminal investigation’
This case may prompt “universities to reconsider how they measure and communicate campus safety,” said Jeannine Chiang at The Nation. Rape is “not a personal or campus issue,” and “people need to realize this happens at their alma mater even if it’s not Cornell, and that it requires systemic change,” Ray Epstein, an organizer and sexual assault prevention advocate, told the outlet.
Barring the chapter of the frat is “hardly accountability,” said Maggie Young at the Vanderbilt Hustler, Vanderbilt University’s student newspaper. While the ongoing case is currently a civil matter, the “seven men accused in Jane Doe’s case should face a full and thorough criminal investigation, and if the evidence supports criminal charges, they should be charged and prosecuted accordingly.”
