I’m currently a sophomore attending Smith College.
The Seven Sisters were constructed as “Ivy Leagues for Women,” where women, oppressed and silenced for centuries, could finally seek out an education equivalent to the ones their brothers were privileged enough to pursue. Since their inception, times have undoubtedly changed. Women walk amongst men in Ivy League hallways, sit amongst men in Ivy League classrooms, and walk the Ivy League stage alongside men. Beyond graduation, some women surpass one or all of their former male classmates.
I was raised in a household and, more importantly, an era that taught me never to shy away from an opportunity just because I happen to be a girl. That’s why, whenever someone asked me whether or not I chose to attend Smith because it was a historically women’s college, I would bristle a little. By asking that question, no one necessarily negated that Smith is an excellent college, but that was the exact reason why I picked it, and it frustrated me that people kept focusing solely on the gender aspect of it.
Smith being a historically women’s college, while a truly wonderful aspect for sure, was never high on my list of reasons why I chose to attend. I needed people to understand that I could’ve thrived, succeeded, and been happy and safe at any college, co-ed or not.
That conviction has since been shattered. The manner in which your institution has handled the brutal, seven-hour gang rape of a woman, a student no less, has shocked and horrified me to my very core. While Smith is far from a perfect college, one key difference keeps ringing out in my mind as more details reveal themselves: that this could quite literally never happen here. There are no fraternities to breed toxic masculinity into rapists and abusers, no administration hell-bent on protecting the absolute scum of the world simply because they are men.
I want to make it clear that I am not minimizing the rape and assaults that happen amongst sapphic relationships here. I am well aware of them. Your shielding of these men from facing full responsibility for their actions – which, by almost any legal definition, constituted gross criminal sexual assault (a charge secondary only to murder) – demonstrates how pervasive the trend of protecting abusers runs in our institutions, a habit much more pronounced at co-ed schools.
Cornell, you claim that the student’s complaints were addressed, that suspensions and expulsions were imposed, and the Chi Phi chapter has been suspended. Essays. Suspensions. Five out of seven of those men were allowed to return to Cornell to continue their education. To quote a statement you released, “Any suggestion that the university did not impose consequential punishments for those involved is false.” Frankly, your suggestion that any punishment short of court-imposed prison time for the federal crime of rape was at all “consequential” is laughable.
Every waking second after reading the statement which Jane Doe submitted her account to and that has recently been released by the District Attorney, detailing what happened to her at the Chi Phi fraternity house on Oct. 19, 2024, I find myself grateful beyond measure that I attend a historically women’s college, but for every reason I shouldn’t have to be.
There are no cisgender male students that reside on campus who would be protected by my administration if they raped me, or a friend, or any other victim. Had Jane Doe attended Smith or another historically women’s college, perhaps this wouldn’t have happened to her, and that’s a truly sickening fact to reckon with.
She earned her spot as a student at Cornell, one of the nation’s most esteemed institutions, and, along with receiving justice in a timely manner, deserved to stay and continue her education. I cannot express how much rage I feel knowing that her abusers were allowed to return to Cornell to continue their lives, while she dropped out as a result of their actions.
As noted by your newspaper’s editorial board, “A university’s obligation to the physical safety of its students… is antecedent to everything else the institution does.”
Why were the lives and futures of Jane Doe’s assailants taken into such careful consideration that you laid rose petals out on their path to re-enter life as Cornell students, while the victim they brutalized for seven hours was left by the wayside? Since the case has been reopened, why have so many people come forward with their own stories of being assaulted and ignored at their own college campuses, institutions that claim to nourish and promote their students’ well-being?
I doubt you are so naive as to think that this was an isolated incident. This is only the tip of the iceberg rearing its ugly head, showing that the systematic abuse of women and protection of their abusers never ended with Jeffrey Epstein’s death. It never stopped at Harvey Weinstein, Donald Trump, Bill Cosby, or any other name from the infinitely long list of sexual abusers. We cannot stand by and hope that, as time passes, the culture of rape will eventually fade, becoming obsolete as surely as landlines and pagers. Rape culture pervades the youth among us, and it will continue to plague society and all who live in it if abusers are not held accountable.
Cornell, you deserve to be sued for whatever the victim sees fit for the horrific crime you weren’t just complicit in, but helped cover up. Every single one of those seven men deserves to be charged and tried in a criminal court, as does every rapist and every institution that protects the most deplorable among society. When is enough enough? Three hours? Five hours? Seven hours? I’m not sure there’s much else I can say that hasn’t already been screamed at you from across the entire country.
Thank you, Cornell University, for forcing me to be ever so grateful for my historically women’s college, for every reason I didn’t want to be.
Signed,
Smith College Student ‘29
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