Content warning: Mentions of sexual violence.
On Sept. 18, Cornell Sun senior editor Cereese Qusba reported on a lawsuit filed by a former Cornell University student, identified only as Jane Doe. In the lawsuit, she alleges that she was gang raped after being coerced into consuming alcohol, marijuana and ketamine at the Chi Phi fraternity house in 2024.
On Oct. 8, members of the 7C community and representatives from the Campus Advocacy, Resources, Education and Support (CARES) office, various collegiate Title IX offices, Scripps Advocates, college administrators and more rallied against sexual violence and vocalized their support for Jane Doe.
Although an impressive number of students came to show support for Jane Doe, the march lacked actionable demands relevant to the 7C community. It was not as productive as community mobilizations with specific goals often are: last year’s Pomona Black Student Union town hall, for example, or the Claremont Student Worker Alliance (CSWA) and dining hall workers picketing outside Frary Dining Hall. Furthermore, by including only the organizers and institutional representatives from Title IX offices, the CARES office and similar organizations as speakers, the post-march scene was not survivor-centered.
The event ended with everyone painting the Walker Wall with red hands, an act that fully embodied performative protest: A mere statement on the wall was all our school administrations had to worry about. Beyond the evocative, bloody imagery of red paint, this action was open to all attendees. Anyone, survivor or not, could signal their support for a community they don’t necessarily have any relationship to. For the attendees who were not survivors, the collective wall painting was an open invitation to attempt to approximate a violence that they did not have the cognitive experience of understanding.
In other words, it seemed to lack what I, as someone who experienced years of sexual violence in the past, sought from them: the support of community. A reader may think, “But Aria, we’re supporting Jane Doe by marching from Elm Tree Lawn to Walker Beach!”
To that, I want to distinguish three concepts: Jane Doe, the person; Jane Doe, the principle; and Jane Doe, the people.
To support Jane Doe, the person, the task is simple: stand with Jane Doe and demand accountability from Cornell, the rapists and enablers who were members of Chi Phi and the many people who administratively failed Jane Doe.
To support Jane Doe, the principle, the task is similarly straightforward: disavow the cultural attitudes and norms that enable sexual violence, regardless of any landmark lawsuit that brings the topic back into our social media feeds. To support Jane Doe as a principle is to fight against rape culture.
The rally on Oct. 8 demonstrated that many people will support both Jane Doe, the person, and Jane Doe, the principle. But what does it mean to support Jane Doe, the people?
Jane Doe, the people, as it turns out, are all the victims and survivors in our social circles. Statistics show that someone you know has most likely experienced sexual violence. Approximately 1 in 5 women and 1 in 31 men have experienced completed or attempted rape in their lifetimes, and 13% of college students experienced rape or sexual assault during college. And these numbers rise if we narrow our focus on BIPOC and queer communities. For instance, 47% of trans people have experienced sexual assault in their lifetimes.
The system we currently live in is flawed at best in its treatment of victims and survivors of sexual violence. Some may argue we have become increasingly willing to talk about the institutional support victims and survivors deserve: Title IX offices, the CARES office, each college’s Advocates programs, various hotlines and reporting mechanisms. While these resources absolutely do matter, none of them can provide something equally important: community. This isn’t simply some magical cop-out fantasy; numerous studies show the positive effects of social support on survivors. A hotline cannot be your friend, and a Title IX officer cannot invite you to dinner.
By talking almost exclusively about institutional infrastructures as the primary method of support, we have effectively pushed the conversations that victims and survivors may need into an institutional “other” space. When survivors are almost exclusively redirected to professionals, they are implicitly told that their experiences must be handled away from everyone else. In this sense, the support we currently give to victims and survivors is stunted by the other-fication of sexual violence stories and the isolation that follows from it.
Then, what does it mean to support Jane Doe, the people? It means recognizing that victims and survivors do not stop being members of our community, nor do they stop being multifaceted people. It means lending an ear when circumstances are tough, and respecting us when we don’t want to share those experiences. It means centering the survivor and not taking away from their autonomy and agency.
Conversely, what does it mean to fail to support Jane Doe, the people? It can mean solely expressing rage against those who committed sexual violence against the Jane Does in your life. It may also look like abandoning the Jane Does in your life the moment their assailants face accountability or fade into the past. It can mean using referral to professional resources as a substitute for being a person in their life. It may mean acting on their behalf and, in doing so, bypassing their autonomy and agency.
Of course, a community may not provide all of the coping mechanisms or tangible solutions a survivor needs. That’s where professional support comes in. However, as someone who cannot figure out whether to call myself a victim or survivor, I have sought and still utilize those resources, but they could not replace the social support and community that I have now.
In the wake of the Cornell lawsuit, it is easy to express outrage, shock and horror at the details of the assault. However, Jane Doe is not an isolated case study. We must remember not to make “survivor” an “othered” category of people that exists out of sight.
After all, survivors are not just people to rally behind, but also people to live alongside. The initial turnout for the symbolic march on Oct. 8 already answers whether we will stand up for survivors. Now, we must ask ourselves if we will sit beside them, practice what we preach once the rally ends and support Jane Doe, the people.
Aria Wang PO ’27 has been sitting on this question for a few years by now.