In between girlhood gossip, giggles, and mindless reel sessions that filled the WSRN station late into the hours of the night, our Instagram timeline kept showing us videos of people calling for action to be taken against the seven fraternity members at Cornell University who gang-raped a student in 2024.
On our social media pages, the majority of creators were echoing the same concerns — justice for victims, punishment for abusers, backlash at the institutions that enable sexual violence. All of these posts said the same thing: “Justice for Jane Doe.” In addition to this sentiment, we were wondering about the root causes of sexual assault on college campuses and how specifically members of fraternities at such a good school could rape an incapacitated woman for seven hours.
When a sexual assault case blows up like Jane Doe’s case has, many posts across the internet make the blanket statement “educate your sons.” But what happens when a son from a good background and a good upbringing goes to a good school and turns into a rapist?
Children’s book author Bess Bell Kalb wonders the same in her essay “Seven Good Boys.” She details her fears about raising “good” boys in America and discusses a parent’s role in preventing sexual assault, as well as the inherent disconnect between an upbringing and what actually happens in a brotherhood on campus.
Her perspective raised a question lingering in the back of many people’s minds, yet never fully addressed: how do we reliably prevent sexual assault on college campuses, instead of just punishing abusers once they commit their crimes?
Kalb’s essay rang in our heads — what is a “good” boy, a “good” man, a “good” person? Can anyone truly be “good” in a society that has systematically enabled the torture and humiliation of women and covered up the horrific actions of our nation’s leaders, of our fathers, of our brothers, of our sons?
We looked up from the essay and at the graffitied walls of the WSRN room. They are covered in students’ writing: love letters, cartoons, calls for protest, and demands for action — a history exhibit in the making.
Across the nation, protestors are screaming, “fuck Cornell,” yet this culture of sexual violence is not just limited to Cornell. We say: fuck all frats.
Cornell needs to change. These “good” boys need to change. We need change.
Dear Cornell students, concerned parents, the college-aged women afraid to have a fun night, and college administrators: here’s how Swarthmore dealt with sexual assault on campus and what we can do to make changes in the future.
Sexual assault is not out of the ordinary for college-aged women. Long before arriving on campus, we’ve heard warnings from family and friends about checking drinks and making sure we’re always with a friend. And for good reason, since a 2019 Association of American Universities survey indicates that one in four female undergraduates will experience unconsensual sexual contact during college. And this statistic does not account for those who may have been assaulted without recognizing it as such, since 60.4% of women do not initially recognize their sexual assault as rape.
Many victims do not speak up or report their attack due to previous failings in the judicial system and campus Title IX department. This is what happened in Jane Doe’s case at Cornell University. Once Jane Doe came to the conclusion that she had been gang raped by men she thought were her friends, she went to campus police and filed a Title IX complaint.
During the Title IX campus investigation, investigators recorded over 50 interviews, wrote more than 4,000 pages of full records, 1,700 pages of interview transcripts, and a 99-page hearing panel decision. However, the campus investigators only submitted a six-page statement from Jane Doe to the District Attorney.
When these stories of administrations and systems failing victims are so pervasive in today’s news, what incentivizes victims to speak out against their abusers? The fear of having your name out there attached to the worst event of your life without getting any justice is a very real possibility.
It’s incredibly difficult for victims of sexual assault to speak up against their abusers, especially if they do not have the full support of their college behind them. While there are immense amounts of national data detailing the prevalence of campus sexual assaults, the vile rapes that have taken place, and the countless victims, there is no comparable data about the punishments the abusers receive. We would argue this is because campuses do not have good systems to resolve assault, that victims are overlooked, and that we’ve created a society in which a woman can be gang raped and the attackers simply have to write an essay in response — one essay in exchange for her future, as well as her physical and mental well-being.
After the most traumatic event in a victim’s life, you would imagine that colleges would expel the abusers for charges against sexual assault, yet the vast majority of all abusers are allowed to remain on campuses. Imagine reliving the worst event of your life every time you step outside of your dorm. In a piece of performance art protesting against how her school handled her Title IX complaint, Emma Sulkowicz at Columbia University carried around the mattress she was raped on until either the university expelled her abuser or she graduated. She carried it across the commencement stage, and the university president refused to shake her hand.
However, we cannot claim that Swarthmore has been a perfect haven, free from the many assault stories that seem so pervasive in other schools. Despite presenting as an intellectual college with socially liberal students, Swarthmore is still grappling with a current truth of sexual violence on campus, as a 2025 Phoenix op-ed details. In our own experience since arriving on campus six weeks ago, we’ve already heard stories of some reprehensible behavior, sometimes involving students we know personally.
Swarthmore has its own dark history, and its community is still working to make the present better — something that other colleges could learn from.
Amid the 2019 #MeToo movement, student journalists in our own bubble were working hard to unearth years of assault and unsavory behavior that had been covered up by members of the fraternities. Documents from the two fraternities on Swarthmore campus — Phi Psi and Delta Upsilon — were leaked, demonstrating years upon years of misogyny, homophobia, and abusive behavior.
While this came as no surprise to many people due to the well-known nature of fraternities across the country, the extent of the behaviors detailed in leaked documents, photos, and videos — ranging from a “rape tunnel” to a “rape attic,” detailed accounts of assault, and hateful content — triggered a student body-wide movement to disband fraternities on Swarthmore campus.
Four days of sit-ins and weeks of protests later, the Swarthmore Coalition to End Fraternity Violence and the Organization 4 Survivors were pleased to find that both Phi Psi and Delta Upsilon had voluntarily disbanded and were banned from campus.
In light of the recent re-opening and re-investigation into the gang rape allegations at Cornell University, following a similar investigation done by student journalists at The Cornell Daily Sun, it’s impossible not to see the connections between what happened on our own campus here and what has happened in Ithaca.
It’s widely understood that fraternities endanger women, and yet colleges and universities continue to allow them on campus. Fraternity membership is highly correlated with sexual aggression in college, as well as increased binge drinking and perception of more aggressive sociosexual attitudes.
Fraternity brothers are 300% more likely to rape women.
In what world can any administrator try to defend fraternities when these brothers are bragging about gang rapes and rape attics and influencing younger men to do the same, creating a cycle of sexual violence? Following Kalb’s essay, how can any parent’s “good” upbringing stand a chance against the brotherhood of peer pressure, drugs, and social norms?
At what point does a college’s silence on fraternity and sexual violence become a stand-in for complacency and lenience?
The 117 page document depicting misogynistic and sexually aggressive behaviors at Swarthmore’s frats are analogous to Cornell Chi Phi’s Snapchat group chat inviting any of the 57 active members to come get “free pussy.”
Following the ideas presented in Kalb’s essay, there is a “promising young woman” somewhere in Ithaca, in Swarthmore, in America, whose future is actively being stripped away by a “good boy.”
Allegations of sexual assault will never be as life-ruining as sexual assault.
Once these “good boys” leave their homes, heading off to bigger and better and brighter things, they become promising young rapists and are placed in the ranks of a fraternity. They become a part of a culture that enables their “good” souls to predicate antisocial and violent behavior, particularly against women. This is a cycle.
The fraternity brothers come and go, but their actions are the same. They go on to raise “good boys” who will go on to have a good time in college. Rinse. Repeat.
Truthfully, we are grateful that Swarthmore has abolished fraternities on campus. We do not want to be living in fear whenever we want to have a fun night with our friends. No woman should.
We dream of a day when college-aged girls don’t have to worry about predatory friends and classmates; a day when an intoxicated sophomore can hang out with her male friends and not be gang-raped by people she trusted; a day when society has created a culture of support and kindness, not violence.
We worry for our friends at other schools where fraternities are still thriving, rape culture is more normalized, and the campus administration keeps allegations silent so the college can maintain its reputation.
We worry the same for ourselves.
We as a society cannot keep going like this. We feel bad for victims of theft. We feel bad for victims of financial abuse. We feel bad for victims of terrorism. We feel bad. We feel bad. We feel bad. So why not feel bad for the countless victims of rape? Why hide it? Why protect the attacker?
The time has come to say: fuck frat culture. Abolish all frats — they’re a breeding ground for rape.
So, dear Cornell and other universities, Swarthmore banned its frats. You can too. You should.
It’s your turn now.
