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. Ms. Hall’s organization convened three dozen Cornell fraternity and sorority members on Tuesday afternoon to talk about the alleged assault.
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. 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” (Tn D), in which female sorority members are invited to serve dinner to certain fraternity brothers.
Claire Ting, who graduated last year, said she has long worried about the practice of fraternity brothers putting away the phones of inebriated women. For some freshmen, hearing about Jane Doe’s case has been a gut punch. Iona Macdonald, 18, 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,” she said.
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