Campus sexual assault not just a Cornell problem, says student

You're looking at Cornell University, where students are gathering. It comes after weeks of scrutiny over the school's handling of an alleged sexual assault involving a fraternity. The CBC's Katie Nicholson is at the campus in Ithaca, New York, and Katie, what are you witnessing right now? Yeah, so Andrew, it was pretty quiet a few minutes ago, and then just basically throngs of people started to come in. The plaza here is actually pretty full, there's a hill up around me, sort of in all directions. People who are brought here because they are upset with the way that Cornell University handled the allegations in this case. It is an alleged frat house rape. According to the civil suit, there were seven young men that were named in it who allegedly plied a young woman known only as Jane Doe with drugs and alcohol, including ketamine. And there's a lot of anger here on campus, palpable, and speaking to student organizers here today with how the university system works in this, let alone the justice system. One of the people who decided to come out here is a third year student, Sarah Garcia. Sarah, I want you to tell me why it was so important for you to attend this demonstration today, this protest. My freshman year, it was 2024, it was October of 2024, right around the time that this happened, and I had an experience that was not the exact same, but not too far off, where I was under the influence of alcohol, and I experienced a sexual assault, and I didn't report it because of the law, the current law within New York State, which is that, in broad strokes, that if you give consent under the influence of alcohol or any other substance, it still counts as consent, even if you're not mentally capable of consent, and my assaulter, he took a voice memo of my consent, and I didn't realize it at the time, and so when I told my friends about it, they said that, oh, it's so that he can use it in future reference to make sure you don't accuse him of anything, and I didn't realize, but then I looked it up, I studied the law on it, and I realized that that was exactly his reasoning, yeah. And so this happened on campus as a student. Yes. I wonder what it was like for you then to see this case break out into the national public consciousness and international public consciousness. It was jarring, but it was needed, I think, to say the least. It's been like a triggering couple of weeks, but honestly, in a really good way, I hope that the silver lining can be that more awareness is raised, but personally, for me, it's been vindicating to understand that a lot of people experience the same thing and that it is an ignored problem. It's something that we brush under the rug in order to protect certain classes of people on campus, whether that be frats or different, it's not just people in fraternities that are assaulting people, you know, but they are being protected, whether the administration wants to acknowledge it or not. And the victim has to live with this for the rest of their life, but they can just move on with their lives as though this didn't happen, and the only reason why those seven men are being, like, this is being brought back into the limelight is because she made the decision, Jane Doe, to file the civil suit, yeah. How would you describe what it is to be on campus right now, with this happening all around you? I feel like, I feel like initially it was very, it was very, like, chaotic, very hectic. People are pointing fingers, like, saying, oh, it was because of this reason that things went wrong and this reason that this wasn't filed, but I think as an overall whole, it's been, it's been really inspiring to see people understand that the problem isn't just Cornell and it's systemic as a whole, and that it's, you know, this patriarchal issue of victim blaming and expecting there to be a perfect victim, that is to blame. And I don't know, on campus, it's, I mean, there's no one saying that, like, that, like, oh, yeah, she deserved this, which is great, but it's good to see this, you know, finally come to light. Sarah, thank you for speaking with us and sharing that with us, appreciate it. And you know, I also spoke to a former administrator who actually retired just before this incident is alleged to have happened, she's actually Canadian, and she told me that every semester there would be some sort of major incident that would come across her desk. I asked her what she thought of the way that Cornell has dealt with this, this particular case. This was her response. Awful, completely awful, like, I feel like it took her lawsuit for them to do something about it. And if she hadn't been, you know, brave enough to come forward, the next case would have happened. Like, it wasn't addressed until she brought visibility to it. And that's the way it's been. Here and every place else. I mean, that's the one thing I want to say. This is not just the Cornell Seven. There's every other university and college in the world that has, you know, the same thing. It's, this is not just Cornell. And if Cornell is the way to break the system, so be it. Now, among the things that folks here are looking for today, they would like to see the degrees that the seven men named in that lawsuit have, or are in the process of having be yanked. They're also looking for changes to policy. They want independent reviews into allegations of sexual assault with mandatory, sort of minimum consequences. Worth noting, though, Andrew, of course, there have been no criminal charges laid, though now the Attorney General, Letitia James, is looking into how this all played out, including the decisions that were made by the DA's office initially to decline prosecution based on a six-page memo they were provided by campus police, which, of course, was whittled down from what is reported to be hours of Jane Doe's account of what she says happened to her that night in October of 2024. Katie, thank you. That is the CBC's Katie Nicholson live in Ithaca, New York. If you are affected by this story or know someone who is, there are support services available across Canada. You can visit endingviolencecanada.org for links to sexual assault centres, crisis lines and other support services.