Homework, lectures and exams press on, but many students at Cornell are consumed by emotional conversations about an alleged assault that has put their campus under a microscope.
Cornell — an elite, high-pressure and, for some, hard-partying school — has become the subject of nationwide scrutiny, after a woman sued the university, a fraternity, a sorority and seven men for what she says was a failure to properly handle her 2024 sexual assault complaint.
The case has created a swirl of outrage, grief and confusion on the school’s Ithaca campus. Some students are shaken that men they’ve sat alongside in lectures or waved at walking through Ho Plaza were named in the shocking lawsuit. Some are defensive about fraternities. And others, particularly those with their own experiences of campus sexual misconduct, are wondering if this is a moment for enduring change.
“There’s a little bit of shock,” said Olympia Hall, 20, a sorority member who leads an anti-sexual assault group on campus. “People are like, Oh my God, I can’t believe I was in a club with them, or I can’t believe I met them at O-week,” meaning campus orientation.
Ms. Hall’s organization convened three dozen Cornell fraternity and sorority members on Tuesday afternoon to talk about the alleged assault.
Gathered in a classroom, the students tried to process the screenshot of sexually explicit messages sent by members of Chi Phi, the fraternity at the center of the controversy. Fraternity members in the room asked: How was it possible that nobody in the chat had done more to stop what was unfolding over hours?
“If someone in one of the group chats had stood up and said something,” Ms. Hall said, “then it would have created a lot of change.”
Plenty of students interviewed said it is hard for them to imagine challenging the social influence of Greek life on campus, to which roughly one-third of Cornell students belong. Some said Greek life has only grown more socially powerful since the isolation of the Covid pandemic, which left people hungrier for tight social bonds. Still more said they recognize that many of Cornell’s donors have close and nostalgic ties to Greek life.
Others said they hope this will be a moment to reassess social rituals, especially in Cornell’s fraternities and sororities. There’s “Champagne and Shackles,” in which a female and male student are zip-tied together and told to finish a bottle of champagne before being freed. There’s “Thursday Night Dinner” (TnD), in which female sorority members are invited to cook dinner and serve it to certain fraternity brothers, who ply them with alcohol.
Claire Ting, who graduated last year and served on student government, said she has long worried about the practice of fraternity brothers putting away the phones of inebriated women attending their parties.
“Part of me had become jaded to seeing this over and over again,” Ms. Ting said of her time on campus, adding that she heard reports about alleged sexual assaults every year of her undergraduate career. “It’s like, ‘Oh my God, my existence here is going to become a statistic.”
For some freshmen who just arrived at Cornell, hearing about Jane Doe’s case has been a gut punch. Iona Macdonald, 18, was relieved that in her first days at Cornell, administrators required her and every classmate to show up at the enormous Bailey Hall for a lecture on consent and how to report assaults. So she was shaken when news of the alleged campus rape case broke weeks later, with a shocking front-page story in the Cornell Daily Sun.
“I got the feeling that if something bad happened, I would be protected,” Ms. Macdonald said. “I just feel like I got the wrong impression.”
For its part, Cornell has denied that the alleged perpetrators weren’t properly disciplined in its own investigation. “A continuation of the false narrative that there were minimal consequences in this case is irresponsible, will make survivors feel less safe and supported, and will perpetuate the underreporting of sexual assault,” said Kyle Kimball, the vice president for University Relations, in a statement.
Shoshanna Witchel, 18, understands that many other colleges around the country have experienced similar reckonings, often with little long-term impact on campus culture. She, like other students, can rattle off a list of colleges known for highly public rape cases.
“My prediction is it will put a temporary damper on Greek life, and then it will spring back up,” she said.
There have been some changes already, like the mayor of Ithaca’s decision this week to pause all permits for social events. But students wondered whether anybody would obey, or whether parties would forge on illicitly. Even in the days after news of the lawsuit broke, parties continued, rolling through parents’ weekend as families poured into Ithaca to visit. Some students sensed a tension in the air as classmates tried to let loose.
“I went out this weekend and was offered an open drink,” Ms. Witchell recalled, adding she was at a fraternity house at the time. “Me and my entire friend group were freaked out.”
The lawsuit has attracted attention on social media from celebrities and influencers, creating an uncanny experience for Cornell students who are both trying to process their own emotions and react to a controversy that has become national in scope.
Earlier this week, Hannah Shvets, a senior, sat with her unfinished statistics homework scrolling through Sidechat, a social media app many Cornell students use, in which students post anonymously about campus news. When she opened her feed, nearly every post was about the accuser, identified as Jane Doe. Some posts expressed fury about the university’s handling of the case and compassion for Ms. Doe. Other posts were skeptical. Some were defensive of fraternities, and argued that these fraternity men were an outlier and not representative of Greek life.
“The question is whether any of this changes anything for the victims or perpetrators,” Ms. Shvets, 21, said. “I’m not sure it does.”
She added that some of her friends, disappointed in Cornell administrators, have felt as though solutions must come from students, whether that means creating alternatives to Greek life or shaming the perpetrators on social media.
“At first people were reacting emotionally,” she said, “but now they’re talking in terms of solutions.”
The post Cornell Students Question Greek Life Culture After Sexual Assault Claim appeared first on New York Times.
