Content warning: subjects of rape and sexual assault.
If your social media hasn’t been completely consumed by the Cornell 7 this week, I genuinely envy you. But if you have somehow managed to avoid the story, here’s the bare bones of it. The case revolves around an unnamed female student — known in court documents as Jane Doe — who alleges that seven Cornell fraternity members drugged, sexually assaulted, and raped her over several hours at a fraternity house in October 2024. On September 16, she filed a civil lawsuit against Cornell University alleging that they failed to protect her or punish the perpetrators. Feel angry yet? You should.
I’m sure the majority of you have seen the headlines, the Instagram posts, and scrolled past many videos discussing the case. I have tried to do the same, but as a woman I can’t ignore the fact that learning about this filled me with a deep, almost physical sense of revulsion. Even when I’ve stopped actively keeping up with the case, I can’t seem to shake the horror of what happened. And why should I? This isn’t just about seven men at one fraternity house. It’s about the fact that women are repeatedly told these incidents are isolated, while the circumstances surrounding them keep looking painfully familiar.
Frat culture has become so deeply glorified that we need a serious shift towards scrutinising, criticising and condemning it. At Wesleyan one fraternity became known as the ‘Rape Factory’ amid allegations of sexual misconduct, last year, within one month three sexual assaults were reported at one Texas fraternity, and research revealed that men who join frats are three times more likely to commit sexual crimes. These are merely a few examples of what is so evidently a much larger problem, however, to list all the reported sexual-violence cases involving frats across America would require me to write a book, not an article.
We need to stop treating fraternities as nothing more than oversized houses full of boys, parties and TikTok bravado, because beneath the caricature can lie a culture where misogyny is cultivated, normalised and rewarded.
It seems clear that Cornell University played as big a role in failing Jane Doe as the fraternity did. What responsibility does a university have when the people it is supposed to protect have been failed so badly? It is not a university dominated by men — women make up roughly 55 per cent of its undergraduate population. Yet in Cornell’s own 2025 survey, 35 per cent of undergraduate women reported experiencing non-consensual sexual contact during their time at the university. That is more than one in three female students.
In the victim’s civil complaint, she says that after the seven students were temporarily suspended, they were given the opportunity to mitigate their conduct by submitting essays to Cornell. Yes, essays. Whereas, unsurprisingly, Jane Doe left Cornell. She did not complete her degree. Of course, universities have reputations to protect, alumni to impress and — in the US — a deeply embedded fraternity culture to preserve. But what is the cost of maintaining their honour? Apparently, it is the education, safety and futures of innocent women.
And this does not just affect women. It affects all of us. These students are our next generation of lawyers, doctors, teachers, diplomats and leaders; what happens on university campuses does not simply stay there. The person sitting next to you in a lecture, or playing against you at a society sports meeting, could in ten years’ time be arguing your case in court, performing your surgery, making decisions that shape your community, or even speaking on your behalf in Parliament.
University does not exist in a vacuum. It matters who we allow to walk out of these educational institutions and into positions of trust. The lives of the men named in the Cornell case didn’t stopped once they left university — they were reported to be building high-status academic and professional trajectories. So, the question becomes uncomfortable but unavoidable: how can we accept women losing their futures while men like this continue towards careers built on trust, responsibility and care? Who do you want leading the society we are going to inherit?
As a second-year law student, this case has reminded me why I want to go into this field in the first place. It is not simply because we need more women sitting in positions of power, although that is also true. It is because we need people willing to challenge the institutions that have allowed these patterns to persist, and to continue to demand change even after the headlines have subsided.
The disturbing truth of the matter is that gender-based violence is not a distant or unimaginable reality for women. Most of us know someone who has experienced it, and many of us have experienced it ourselves. Cases like this hit so hard because they unfortunately feel familiar. This cannot be something we care about only when a story becomes horrific enough, or viral enough, to demand our attention.
Educating yourself, your friends, your children and changing the way we respond does not have to be difficult. We have to stop waiting for another woman to be failed before we decide to act.
We cannot wait for change. We have to start it.
“Cornell University, Ho Plaza and Sage Hall” by sach1tb is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
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The Cornell 7: When Will We Stop Failing Women?
Content warning: subjects of rape and sexual assault.
If your social media hasn’t been completely consumed by the Cornell 7 this week, I genuinely envy you. But if you have somehow managed to avoid the story, here’s the bare bones of it. The case revolves around an unnamed female student — known in court documents as Jane Doe — who alleges that seven Cornell fraternity members drugged, sexually assaulted, and raped her over several hours at a fraternity house in October 2024. On September 16, she filed a civil lawsuit against Cornell University alleging that they failed to protect her or punish the perpetrators. Feel angry yet? You should.
I’m sure the majority of you have seen the headlines, the Instagram posts, and scrolled past many videos discussing the case. I have tried to do the same, but as a woman I can’t ignore the fact that learning about this filled me with a deep, almost physical sense of revulsion. Even when I’ve stopped actively keeping up with the case, I can’t seem to shake the horror of what happened. And why should I? This isn’t just about seven men at one fraternity house. It’s about the fact that women are repeatedly told these incidents are isolated, while the circumstances surrounding them keep looking painfully familiar.
Frat culture has become so deeply glorified that we need a serious shift towards scrutinising, criticising and condemning it. At Wesleyan one fraternity became known as the ‘Rape Factory’ amid allegations of sexual misconduct, last year, within one month three sexual assaults were reported at one Texas fraternity, and research revealed that men who join frats are three times more likely to commit sexual crimes. These are merely a few examples of what is so evidently a much larger problem, however, to list all the reported sexual-violence cases involving frats across America would require me to write a book, not an article.
We need to stop treating fraternities as nothing more than oversized houses full of boys, parties and TikTok bravado, because beneath the caricature can lie a culture where misogyny is cultivated, normalised and rewarded.
It seems clear that Cornell University played as big a role in failing Jane Doe as the fraternity did. What responsibility does a university have when the people it is supposed to protect have been failed so badly? It is not a university dominated by men — women make up roughly 55 per cent of its undergraduate population. Yet in Cornell’s own 2025 survey, 35 per cent of undergraduate women reported experiencing non-consensual sexual contact during their time at the university. That is more than one in three female students.
In the victim’s civil complaint, she says that after the seven students were temporarily suspended, they were given the opportunity to mitigate their conduct by submitting essays to Cornell. Yes, essays. Whereas, unsurprisingly, Jane Doe left Cornell. She did not complete her degree. Of course, universities have reputations to protect, alumni to impress and — in the US — a deeply embedded fraternity culture to preserve. But what is the cost of maintaining their honour? Apparently, it is the education, safety and futures of innocent women.
And this does not just affect women. It affects all of us. These students are our next generation of lawyers, doctors, teachers, diplomats and leaders; what happens on university campuses does not simply stay there. The person sitting next to you in a lecture, or playing against you at a society sports meeting, could in ten years’ time be arguing your case in court, performing your surgery, making decisions that shape your community, or even speaking on your behalf in Parliament.
University does not exist in a vacuum. It matters who we allow to walk out of these educational institutions and into positions of trust. The lives of the men named in the Cornell case didn’t stopped once they left university — they were reported to be building high-status academic and professional trajectories. So, the question becomes uncomfortable but unavoidable: how can we accept women losing their futures while men like this continue towards careers built on trust, responsibility and care? Who do you want leading the society we are going to inherit?
As a second-year law student, this case has reminded me why I want to go into this field in the first place. It is not simply because we need more women sitting in positions of power, although that is also true. It is because we need people willing to challenge the institutions that have allowed these patterns to persist, and to continue to demand change even after the headlines have subsided.
“Scumdee”: Why is Dundee Always the Punchline?
The disturbing truth of the matter is that gender-based violence is not a distant or unimaginable reality for women. Most of us know someone who has experienced it, and many of us have experienced it ourselves. Cases like this hit so hard because they unfortunately feel familiar. This cannot be something we care about only when a story becomes horrific enough, or viral enough, to demand our attention.
Educating yourself, your friends, your children and changing the way we respond does not have to be difficult. We have to stop waiting for another woman to be failed before we decide to act.
We cannot wait for change. We have to start it.
“Cornell University, Ho Plaza and Sage Hall” by sach1tb is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
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