A hard week is getting harder at Cornell University, as student protests have escalated to vandalism, drawing even more unwanted international attention.
Cornell University Police responded to a tip at 3:30 am on Monday, drawing them to Day Hall, the central administration building at Cornell.
The scene they arrived at was carnage. Glass shards from broken windows lay at the entrances to the building. Someone smashed in the doors, and “SMASH THE PATRIARCHY” and “AT CORNELL RAPISTS ARE PROTECTED PROTESTORS ARE EXPELLED,” were written in red paint across the building.
Days earlier, President Donald Trump had attacked the prosecutor overseeing the case and said he felt sorry for the seven men she is prosecuting.
Between those two moments sits a woman who says she was assaulted in 2024 and has waited two years for an institution to take her seriously. It is worth asking who in this story is actually serving her.
Start with Cornell, because the anger at it is earned. In a story that has become all too familiar this week, a former student alleged in a lawsuit that seven fraternity members sexually assaulted her while she was incapacitated. That is one horror in itself. The University’s response at the time is what made this case so much harder to stomach.
While two of the seven accused men were found responsible for sexual assault and expelled, the initial stories that came to light last week suggested that the others were simply given essays to write as their punishment. The New York Times investigated over 1000 pages of Cornell investigative documents, and found that whilst these essays were part of the punishment, no one’s sole punishment was an essay.
It is unclear whether Cornell staff believe this is a valid defence of their response, but I wish I had the confidence it must have taken to assign an essay and an educational module to an alleged rapist.
The university can’t be surprised that people doubt their response, no matter its severity, after initial reports were so poor. Even President Kotlikoff conceded the school “must do better.” The harder question is why that sentence took two years and a lawsuit.
The failures go beyond the essays. According to the New York Times, Jane Doe told police she was “100 per cent” confident she was raped, and that statement never made it into the report sent to prosecutors, who dropped the case.
Regardless of what happens to the ‘Cornell 7’, student protests on campus continue the conversation, for better or for worse.
The worse is those who sneak out in the middle of the night to destroy a campus where almost 9000 students live. Vandals argue that property damage isn’t violence and that condoning rape is. I understand the argument, and I understand the rage. But a broken door doesn’t move a single accused person closer to accountability, and it especially doesn’t make the next survivor feel safer coming forward.
Their demands, including firing named administrators and abolishing Greek life are definitely reflections of real frustration, but delivered at 3am by anonymous people? It doesn’t necessarily seem like a verdict that will make Cornell a safer place to be.
However, hours later, hundreds of students, staff and community members gathered on the same campus, wearing purple ribbons and carrying signs, and marched to the damaged building to present their demands. They called for President Michael Kotlikoff to resign and for changes to how the student code of conduct defines consent, and they did it in broad daylight.
“How much does it take for our university to stand with survivors?” student Athena Holloway asked the crowd, as reported by the ABC. That question is harder for Cornell to dismiss than a broken door, and the university’s spokesperson, Kyle Kimball, acknowledged students’ “frustration and strong emotions” while saying the damage was being investigated.
The two protests share a grievance but not a method, and that difference matters for other students that still need to live on what should be a safe campus. One left glass on the floor and a statement from nobody in particular. The other left a list of demands, signed by people willing to be held to them.
And then, as always, there is the president. When asked about Attorney General Letitia James, now named special prosecutor, Trump called her “corrupt” and said he felt “badly” for her targets. He then addressed the men she was prosecuting, saying “They won’t get a fair shake.”
I think that says enough about how willing the president is to stand up for young women in the United States, or any victim of sexual assault.
Even past his blatant bias, notice what’s missing from the president’s comments: any mention of the woman, Jane Doe, who brought the claims. A prosecution that hasn’t begun is already being treated as a prop in a political feud.
That is the pattern. The university talks about reform, the protesters about revolution, the politicians about each other. Somewhere underneath all of it is a woman who says she was assaulted, and who has now watched two years of silence turn into a spectacle. Despite protests, punishments, vandalism or any of the other awful facets of this conversation that continue to come to light, the emphasis should always be on Jane Doe’s safety, and how we can ensure that something like this will never happen again.
She deserves a process that takes her seriously. The seven at least have the right to one that takes the evidence seriously. Cornell has so far failed to give anyone either. A video message won’t fix that, but opening the 2024 process to independent review, and explaining its sanctions plainly, would certainly be a start.
Until then, the most useful thing the rest of us can do is the least satisfying: keep watching, keep asking questions, and refuse to treat a woman’s worst night as a stage for our own side.
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