“This is the most united I’ve seen the Cornell student body during my entire time at Cornell,” Kate*, 20, a junior at the university, says of the campus protest for sexual assault prevention held on Oct. 5 on Ho Plaza. “There was so much support, so many signs — people are really rallying behind this cause.” Annie*, 21, a senior at Cornell, also encountered the largest crowd she’d ever seen at a demonstration during her time as a student — some hugging, some holding hands. “I saw an unexpected amount of men at the protest, [too,] which brought a lot of hope for me,” she says. “[The men] were there with their male friends, and that was encouraging to see.”
Since news of Jane Doe’s case broke in September, in which an unnamed student alleged she was drugged and sexually assaulted by multiple men at Cornell’s Chi Phi fraternity house in 2024, daily life has fundamentally shifted across the Ithaca campus. For many, Jane Doe’s case has followed them into the classroom, where some professors have openly addressed the situation. Greek organizations have also felt the impact: The Interfraternity Council canceled all fraternity events the weekend of Oct. 3, and the Delta Delta Delta house (where Jane Doe was a former member) has been under 24-hour security since news of the civil suit broke in mid-September. The relentless press coverage has added strain to the students not directly related to the case, as well. Hannah*, 19, a sophomore at Cornell, tells Her Campus, “There’s stress from the amount of media presence on campus, and from fielding questions about the case from family and friends.”
These conversations around sexual assault on campus have become a part of everyday life for Cornell women. But one aspect of the conversation around Jane Doe has stayed heavily guarded: her identity. “[Students] are being very proactive about keeping her name private and protected,” Annie says. Hannah says she knows “no one [in the sophomore class] who can identify who Jane Doe is.” Current Cornell women refuse to entertain questioning or curiosity about her identity — online or in daily conversations. “This isn’t gossip. [Upperclassmen] have been very intentional about not speaking about [who she is] because it is so real to us,” Annie says.
While there is a growing sense of unity among the women of Cornell, it’s shadowed by a sense of fear. With Jane Doe’s case, Annie says, “you’re forced to confront the fact that if this was you, or if this was your friend, you won’t have this institutional support.”
The protest’s speakers represented some of the 20 student and faculty organizations that organized the Oct. 5 demonstration. The speeches drew on Cornell’s long history of student activism, reminding the crowd that it was a moment to call for institutional change. Their demands included the resignations of Cornell’s president and members of the Title IX office, as well as the expulsion of the men involved in Doe’s case or the revocation of their degrees, to show “that consent is not complicated,” Kate says. “The No. 1 thing I would like to see is preventative measures from the administration, and stopping [sexual assault] at the root,” Annie says. Kate calls for “very strict revisions to our university’s Title IX procedures — both how it’s written on paper, and how it’s enforced, particularly with student input.”
Kate wants to see those changes extend beyond Cornell, too, hoping “other universities and student groups take this up as their personal cause” Kate says, “[Jane Doe’s case] is a Cornell problem in this instance, but [sexual assault on campus is] not just a Cornell problem.”
The Oct. 5 protest to hold Cornell’s administration accountable was just the beginning. One day later, the Cornell NAACP organized an economic blackout and sit-in, where about 100 students skipped their classes and spent seven hours sitting in a dining hall on campus, halting all spending in solidarity with Jane Doe. NAACP president Athena Holloway told The Cornell Sun the sit-in was “an opportunity to continue placing pressure on the University to meet their demands.”
While the fight for reform is far from over, one truth remains clear: Many women on Cornell’s campus are standing with Jane Doe. Annie says, “We’re hoping that, in our last year, we can help be part of the change, and hoping that as soon as [we] leave campus, it won’t happen to the next girl.” She added, “We need to keep talking about it. We need to keep sticking with Jane Doe.”
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, you can call the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 800-656-HOPE (4673) or visit hotline.rainn.org.
*Names have been changed.