Final week, Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff tried to rebound from latest headlines when he announced that in gentle of Jane Doe’s sexual misconduct go well with towards the college, Cornell fraternity events could be canceled for the rest of the 2026-27 tutorial yr. This determination is definitely a step in the proper path — and is a fairly literal response to latest scholar backlash that insists “frat culture is rape culture” — but it surely’s not sufficient.
I’ve by no means been to a frat get together — my undergraduate establishment, an elite liberal arts faculty in New England, did away with Greek life in 1984, many years earlier than I’d ever enroll. And in 2010, my sophomore fall, the faculty banned onerous alcohol possession and consumption campus-wide. On the floor, Kotlikoff may see alternative in a campus setting like this, crafting public notion of a uncommon protected haven, a bucolic oasis free from sexual assault and disorderly conduct.
However even within the absence of fraternities — and, to the perfect of my information, alcohol — a sexual misconduct case involving members of my faculty’s soccer group secretly watching a feminine scholar carry out oral intercourse on certainly one of their teammates plagued the establishment again in 2011, making national news. I coated the incident in depth as a scholar reporter. It’s unlucky, although not stunning, that occasions of this nature are nonetheless happening 15 years later, as many campuses like Cornell’s have but to implement any actual systemic change.
In an interview with the New York Occasions, Kotlikoff cited Ithaca’s lack of bars and different social venues as having bolstered the importance on Cornell’s Greek life on campus in recent times, as if having fewer downtown watering holes (presumably reserved for these age 21-plus) is responsible for extra consuming and the college’s quite a few assault circumstances like Jane Doe’s.
I’m not satisfied that native Ithaca bars and eating places — lots of which, per Kotlikoff’s assertion, didn’t survive the pandemic — have been integral in stopping sexual misconduct. In spite of everything, analysis signifies that it’s alcohol consumed, whatever the venue, that performs a job in 50% to 70% of sexual assaults on faculty campuses. Furthermore, Cornell’s personal information point out that sexual assaults mostly occurred in residence halls, adopted by off-campus residences.
To his credit score, Kotlikoff did acknowledge in his university-wide announcement that “campus sexual assault” isn’t restricted to the fraternity system. He additionally outlined efforts to “strengthen our programs of assist for survivors of sexual assault” and highlighted different measures that Cornell will soak up relation to “training, oversight, and enforcement of protected social habits and citizenship.” But following the declaration of one thing as intelligible and as rapid as a fraternity get together ban, these statements appear extra like afterthoughts than true plans of motion.
Kotlikoff added that the college will plan to “speed up the implementation of the suggestions of the Presidential Task Force on Sexual Assault,” which was established in 2025. Among the job pressure’s suggestions give attention to scholar security and empowerment, and one pertained to campus course choices and proposed that Cornell implement the next:
- Develop new programs and improve current courses that improve competency and understanding about intercourse
- Develop a number of new programs on sexual citizenship (recognizing one’s personal proper to sexual self-determination, and that of others)
- Incorporate sexual citizenship ideas into first-year advising courses
- Establish and assist current courses associated to sexual citizenship
Honestly, this acceleration ought to already be in observe, because the time to start providing — and mandating — such programs begins now, forward of enrollment subsequent semester. The college wants to maneuver swiftly to transform its 2027 choices and tutorial schedule so that each one college students, no matter class yr, will full a required, graded course that encompasses the aforementioned ideas. Transferring ahead, this requirement shall be an integral part of the first-year curriculum, in addition to for members of Cornell’s sturdy sophomore switch cohort.
School has lengthy been revered as an setting for college kids to suppose critically and develop lifelong information and expertise, which may be achieved solely by means of tangible studying alternatives. Fraternity and different social bans don’t put any impetus on college students to immediately change their habits — in the event that they did, establishments devoid of Greek life would, ideally, be immune from sexual misconduct circumstances, which we all know isn’t the case.
By framing teachings surrounding sexual assault and consent as a part of the core tutorial curriculum, Cornell will underscore simply how critically it views these issues whereas additionally mandating lively scholar participation in key conversations. However the time to start out making this sort of instructional change is now, whereas the horrors of Jane Doe’s expertise are nonetheless recent in college students’ minds.
Sarah Lyon is a tradition author in Manhattan whose work has appeared within the New York Occasions, the Wall Road Journal, the Washington Submit and Architectural Digest.
