To the Editor:
Reading The New York Times’s extensive coverage of the accusations of rape at Cornell has both enraged and reassured me.
The details of what happened to Jane Doe are horrifying, but at least they are now being reported and considered credible. This has not always been the case.
In fact, when Ms. magazine published the results of the first national study of sexual assault on college campuses in the mid-1980s, the term “date rape” was relatively new. That study found that 1 in 4 college women reported being victims of rape or attempted rape, and only 1 in 4 women whose sexual assault met the legal definition identified their experience as rape.
The backlash was immediate. Among the arguments was that women were just reacting to a “date gone bad.” More than 40 years later, despite activism by student groups employing Title IX mandates, and the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements, many colleges and universities have failed to protect their students from sexual assaults.
Now there is a public outcry for transparency and accountability that can’t be ignored. Let’s hope colleges and law enforcement finally learn their lesson.
Ellen Sweet New York The writer is a former Ms. magazine editor and was the coordinator of the Ms. Magazine Campus Project on Sexual Assault.
To the Editor:
Re “Cornell Student’s Shame Slowly Turned Into Outrage” (front page, Oct. 2):
Coverage of the Cornell rape investigation needs to highlight how response to trauma unfolds. It often takes time, weeks in the case of Jane Doe, to arrive at the monstrous realization that one was sexually assaulted — that life as it was cannot and will not continue.
The newly uncovered texts from The Times’s investigation paint a picture of a woman confused about what happened to her, defensive of people she thought were her friends and longing for any semblance of normalcy. This is consistent with trauma responses after sexual assault.
However, someone unfamiliar with how a person can react to a traumatic event could read the article and assume that Jane Doe’s ostracism after the episode prompted her to accuse the seven men of rape.
There is a range of trauma responses. Without that context, readers may mistake the often complicated aftermath of sexual assault for evidence that an assault never occurred.
Lara-Nour Walton Brooklyn
To the Editor:
Re “As James Takes Over, Rape Inquiry Enters New Phase” (news article, Oct. 4):
I am a law enforcement officer with 34 years of experience and an adjunct professor of criminal justice. It seems to me that no one has mentioned the elephant in the room. The biggest stakeholder in Tompkins County would be Cornell University, with much of the county’s revenue and employment dependent on the school.
Arrests, indictments and court proceedings in a sexual assault case of this graphic nature would garner attention harmful to the university. The district attorney was given a six-page summary of Jane Doe’s interviews, declined to review additional evidence gathered by the campus police department and did not see the statement by the victim in which she said she was raped. He chose not to prosecute.
Is it possible that there was collusion between the university and the district attorney, that he was told it would be handled internally? This would maintain Title IX confidentiality, and the public would not hear the allegations.
It is also unclear why the district attorney apparently did not contact the New York Special Victims Unit, which is more experienced in these investigations and has more resources than campus and local police.
Attorney General Letitia James, who has been appointed special prosecutor, should look into the relationship between Tompkins County and Cornell.
Kevin G. Collins New Hyde Park, N.Y. The writer is an adjunct professor of sociology and criminal justice at St. Francis College in Brooklyn.
To the Editor:
I attended freshmen teas held by fraternities at Cornell in 1964, and I was offered a spiked punch, then later a pot brownie, which left me utterly stoned. A kind fraternity member called a cab and sent me home.
The 10-minute cab ride felt as if it took hours. I could have been assaulted and not been aware of what was happening, or had the ability to say no.
I wish I knew that fraternity member’s name, to say thank you now.
Elizabeth Reed Ithaca, N.Y.
To the Editor:
Perhaps most striking, beyond Jane Doe’s ordeal and the horrific Snapchat messages recently exposed, is that not one young man — inside that room at Chi Phi fraternity house or who received those messages — interrupted, questioned, sought help or stepped in to aid the woman who was in a vulnerable state.
Did not one of these men see Jane Doe as a real person, not an object for their use, or abuse? Or was this scene just a tad more extreme than the norm at Chi Phi and other notorious fraternities?
Lisa Shoglow Weston, Conn.
To the Editor:
Perhaps the solution is to do away with fraternities and sororities and return to college dormitories and no alcohol on campus.
I’m a 1961 graduate of Smith College. Our rules included no alcohol on campus, no guests on the floors after 10:30 p.m. and the requirement to keep your door open if you had a male guest. That would be unfathomable today, I assume.
Alice Schaffer Smith Palo Alto, Calif.
The post A Reckoning at Cornell, and Beyond appeared first on New York Times.
