Gang rape at elite university draws attention to rampant sexual assaults on US campuses

A sexual assault allegation at Cornell University has renewed focus on campus safety in the US after a victim filed a civil lawsuit two years later. The case prompted a criminal investigation, highlighting concerns over reporting, accountability and handling of sexual violence claims

New York: A gang rape at an Ivy League university that surfaced after two years of attempts by the institution and law enforcement to brush it off has brought attention to the long-festering issue of sexual assaults on US campuses.

Only after the victim of the alleged rape at Cornell University in New York State filed a civil suit against the institution last month, the two-year-old incident came to public attention and forced law enforcement to open a proper criminal investigation.

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The woman, who is identified in court documents only as “Jane Doe” to protect the identity of a rape victim, has said that she reported the assault to campus police. But the local prosecutor claimed that the police report he saw did not say that she complained about being raped and, therefore, did not pursue it.

It emerged from transcripts of police interviews that the woman had indeed told them that she could “say with 100 per cent confidence I was raped”. And recounting the ordeal at a university inquiry, she had said she “felt like bait” with “lions around me”.

It took two years for the rape allegation to be taken seriously, and that came about in part due to the civil case and the persistent reporting by student journalists.

Finally, the prosecutor, said that he would follow-up the case. The victim told the student newspaper, Cornell Sun, “Almost two years later, I still carry the weight of its impact every day and night”. According to reports, the university has expelled two students and suspended others, some of whom were made to also write essays as punishment. But they escaped criminal prosecution. Behind the incident is the shockingly widespread sexual abuse of women students on US campuses, which has not drawn national protests of any scale.

A Cornell University survey last year had found that 35 per cent of undergraduate women students reported experiencing sexual assaults or “nonconsensual sexual contact”. At Harvard, a survey a year earlier found the percentage was 22 per cent.

Former President Barack Obama had drawn attention to malaise, saying in 2014, “An estimated one in five women has been sexually assaulted during her college years — one in five”. That is 20 per cent of the women students. “Of those assaults, only 12 per cent are reported, and of those reported assaults, only a fraction of the offenders are punished”, Obama said.

The alleged assault at Cornell took place at the university hostel of the Chi Phi Fraternity, a sort of student club with national affiliation where a member had taken her and allegedly drugged her. The ugliest part of the incident was posts on a messaging app by a member of the group inviting others in crude terms to assault her and the responses by others.

The exchanges between members of the group about the incident surfaced in court filings with screenshots. One of the students admitted to perverted sex during an internal university inquiry, and another blamed her even as they gave contradictory testimonies, according to transcripts reported by the media.

The US media that trumpets cases of rape abroad plays down the campus attacks, probably because some of the perpetrators are from the same elite social circles as the media leaders. In headlines, they have not called the Cornell case what it is, a gang rape, avoiding altogether or burying the term that would be flung about in similar cases elsewhere. Now leaders are speaking out.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul, who forced the university to hold an independent inquiry, said, “This culture (enabling assaults on women) has to stop. And in New York, we’re going to do everything we can to stop it”.

The Democratic Women’s Caucus representing the party’s Congresswomen said in a statement, “Our hearts break for Jane Doe at Cornell University as she navigates this case and tries to heal. We stand with you. This widespread culture of sexual violence must end”.