Cornell University’s system didn’t ‘fail’ to protect Jane Doe. It functioned exactly as it meant to — and that’s why we should all be afraid.
Cornell captured national attention after Jane Doe filed a lawsuit in September 2026 against Cornell and seven fraternity students. In her testimony, Doe identified the students at Cornell who participated in gang raping her. Students across the United States rightfully condemned Cornell’s response to the assault; however, the atonement of the “Cornell 7” is not isolated to Cornell. This isn’t only a fraternity culture problem or one unique to Ivy League institutions. It’s a federal one that extends to every college and university across the nation.
All colleges and universities in the United States that receive federal funding operate under Title IX, which prevents sex-based discrimination and ensures that colleges thoroughly investigate harassment and assault cases. Under Title IX regulations, however, the process remains strictly administrative, independent of the criminal justice system. Its jurisdiction is bound to a student’s enrollment at the time of the initial report, so the institution may opt to end the process if a student graduates or leaves the university. At its core, Title IX functions as a mechanism for institutional damage control: Federal law penalizes a university only if it displays ‘deliberate indifference’ to a student’s report. The law focuses entirely on the school’s response over the perpetrator’s actions.
We are by no means protected from a “Cornell 7”-adjacent atrocity occurring at the 5Cs. In 2023, the Claremont Colleges conducted a Sexual Assault Campus Climate Survey, asking students to rank how much they agree with a series of statements. The survey findings were rather frightening: Among 1005 individuals, the average agreement with the statement “I don’t believe I or one of my friends am at risk of sexual assault on this campus” was 2.96 on a scale of one to five. Eight percent of junior students and 13% of senior students reported experiencing sexual assault on campus, and 64% of these individuals reported that the person who sexually assaulted them was a student at the 5Cs. In cases where bystanders were present, 76% of individuals assaulted on campus in the presence of a bystander reported that these bystanders did not intervene.
Evidently, the 5Cs are not exempt from the pervasive culture of sexual violence that exists across all college campuses. But some students retain good-hearted faith that our administrations will respond differently than Cornell. “This is what a proper administration that supports survivors looks like,” a Pitzer junior said, offering a message of support on behalf of the Claremont Colleges, at a student-organized protest on Oct. 8.
In reality, past evidence of administrative response to misconduct is quite the contrary. I do not intend to equate sexual violence with other forms of misconduct, or to equate the systems that facilitate these disciplinary processes, but to draw a parallel between the institutional practices in place at both Cornell and the 5Cs that allow students to commit misconduct without the fear of administrative intervention holding them fully accountable.
In 2019, a secret document shared by swimmers on the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS) men’s swim team and divers was leaked to the public. Titled “Stag Survival Guide,” the document sparked significant backlash across 5C campuses for containing blatant racist, sexist and homophobic descriptions of several athletes. The CMS athletic department reprimanded athletes by instituting “mandatory educational programming” and issuing suspensions from team practice.
Fast forward to 2025, when CMS athletics opened an investigation into misconduct allegations on the men’s swim team after a CMS swimmer was allegedly subject to consistent racist harassment. After the investigation, the team went through a guided reflection, and were temporarily suspended from a single dual-meet. The investigative process conducted by the department was not dissimilar to those of the Title IX office: It sought to “ensure alignment with our community values and expectations,” as the CMS athletic department said.
It is likely that the administration’s ability to enforce disciplinary actions was limited, as the athletes’ misconduct could fall under the scope of Leonard’s Law, a California state policy that forbids all private universities in California from disciplining students for speech protected by the First Amendment. Both legal procedures produce disciplinary processes that protect bureaucracy before students. The fact that misconduct continues to be dealt with in analogous ways demonstrates that these policies are not functioning to serve the exact people they purport to protect. Asking students to reflect is a way to resolve cases without holding those responsible accountable.
Cornell’s Title IX procedures bear similarities to the 5Cs. Each 5C has multiple disciplinary tracks: one for academic integrity, another for non-academic student conduct and a final track for discrimination or harassment claims. Unlike the academic dishonesty and non-academic student conduct sectors, Title IX cases follow separate campus policies overseen by the Title IX office, which adheres to the nationwide Title IX regulations.
Under the 5Cs, if a student files a report, they may ask the office to open an investigation. During the investigation, both parties may agree to an agreement-based resolution (ABR). In the case of ABR, options include a facilitated resolution or mediation, concluding with a written resolution agreement. If both parties do not agree, then the investigation moves to a hearing. However, the hearing occurs only if the Title IX coordinator can identify the respondent and if the office finds the alleged actions to be under Title IX misconduct. Title IX investigations rely on “preponderance of evidence” (a subjective standard for judging whether the allegations against a respondent are more likely than not true), meaning a 51% likelihood that the alleged misconduct occurred. The authority figure determining if “preponderance of evidence” is met varies from institution to institution. Following the hearing, the decision-maker will issue “remedies and sanctions.” For the 5Cs, these include, but are not limited to, warning, relocation from a residence hall, employment probation or suspension.
“Reading about the CMS swim team, or the ‘Cornell 7,’ we intuitively feel like these punishments are not adequate; this is not an accident of the system, but a feature of its design.”
Likewise, Cornell evaluates discrimination and harassment reports under University Policy 6.4, which falls under Title IX. The student who reports may choose to file a formal complaint, which launches an investigation. The investigation gathers substantial evidence, and the office or investigator can make a threshold determination on whether to send the case to the hearing panel. If the investigator determines that a violation occurred based on that evidence, they enter a formal hearing, or all parties can voluntarily agree on an alternate resolution. Cornell’s examples of an alternative resolution include, but are not limited to, a reflection paper, an apology letter or a no-contact order. The office lists alcohol or drug education, oral warning, written reprimand, suspension or expulsion as possible sanctions.
Both administrations draw from the same federal handbook, which detail extensive processes victims must go through, with an end goal of checking a box: claiming that the college took all necessary procedures.
The outcome of that process can be, and often is, a written reprimand or essay — as in the case of the “Cornell 7.” The CMS swim team’s misconduct violations were similarly met with a bureaucracy of reflection papers and disciplinary action centered not on justice for victims but safety for administrations. Across different forms of misconduct, these systems that govern universities’ misconduct procedures are set up in a way that allows perpetrators to leave the process with minimal consequences. Reading about the CMS swim team, or the “Cornell 7,” we intuitively feel like these punishments are not adequate; this is not an accident of the system, but a feature of its design.
Enraged at Cornell’s response — and rightfully so — it is easy for us to critique Cornell, other Ivy League schools or schools with adjacent Greek life culture for their supposed ineffective justice systems. The reality is that, by nature, the 5Cs’ system is functionally the same, and the process rarely outputs justice for its students. If the 5Cs, Cornell and all other colleges are all functioning under Title IX machinery, we cannot be sure our colleges would have handled this situation any differently — or that any college across the nation would have, for that matter.
Across American colleges and universities in 2024, 5,799 rapes were reported — and that number is likely a severe underestimate. Under the Title IX framework and the university justice systems functioning under it, most of these incidents will never receive justice. The individuals who committed these crimes will continue to sit in class beside the victims; they will receive the same graduation diploma and they will, in most cases, have similar chances at succeeding beyond college.
No one, including 5C students, is truly safe under a system that chooses to weigh the delivery of justice down in ineffective procedures; that protects colleges before it protects victims. We have a responsibility to set aside our pride in our institutions and our faith in their virtue, because what happened to Jane Doe could have realistically happened to any of us. We have a responsibility to turn her case into a national revision of Title IX policies and the justice systems built on them.
What perception of justice do we create when we let essays atone for hours of coordinated gang raping? We must confront the reality that the protections which we once thought would defend us are more interested in keeping us silent. As for the illusion of justice formulated by Cornell and all other institutions using Title IX and its ‘damage control’ incentives: We must see through the smokescreen deployed by ‘virtuous institutions.’
Olivia Brinkman Schooler PO ’29 would like to thank Finn Rigby — without whom this article would not have been possible — in addition to David Menefee-Libey for their many contributions to this piece.