CW: sexual assault, sexual harassment, drugging
In November 2024, The Cornell Daily Sun broke the news of a sexual assault reported to the Cornell University Police Department, alleged to have taken place at the university’s Chi Phi fraternity house. The case was brought up again in the student publication on 18th September 2026, after the victim, identified as ‘Jane Doe’, filed a civil complaint against the university, the fraternity chapter, seven current and former students, and related organisations including a campus bar and several university sororities. She claimed to have been gang-raped by several men belonging to the fraternity, who knew she was too intoxicated to consent and further coerced her into taking ketamine and other drugs. Part of the evidence cited in the complaint is an image taken from a Snapchat group chat, wherein one of the defendants encourages other fraternity brothers to join in the assault by directing them towards “free pussy” on the premises. None of the 57 members of said group chat have yet come forward or claimed to have intervened.
According to the lawsuit, after an initial suspension of the fraternity chapter’s activities, the university’s investigation resulted in two of the accused being expelled, while the rest were “offered a chance to mitigate conduct by submitting essays”. The Tompkins County District Attorney’s Office has since reopened a criminal investigation into the case, though District Attorney Matthew Van Houten claims the victim’s initial report contained no accusations of non-consensual behaviour. Doe will be allowed to present her case before a grand jury, two years after she was allegedly forced to leave the university following the university and local police department’s inaction. Cornell allegedly refused to refund her tuition payments, though she reportedly felt she would never feel safe enough to return to the university. At the time of writing, the five students who remain at Cornell are on track to graduate in the next year. Many have high-profile jobs lined up.
Every news and social media platform I have browsed in the last week has been flooded with further details and reactions to this story. Some respond in anger, some in disbelief. Some have found the strength to share their own experiences with collegiate rape culture. None of the stories ends happily, and with the horrifying rollback of protections under Title IX under the current US administration, it’s hard to believe that this or any subsequent ones will.
There is no doubt in my mind that there are men I know, men I share social and academic spaces with, who are reading about this story and pompously thinking to themselves: “Well, that’s the kind of thing that would only happen in America”. While it is undeniable that Greek life has fostered a particularly vicious culture that permits, if not glorifies, gender-based violence (as well as elitism and racial discrimination – whether Greek life should be allowed to retain its current standing without serious reform, or whether total dissolution is called for, is a separate yet increasingly urgent conversation), the building blocks that create this toxicity are plainly reflected in many prestigious UK universities, including Oxford.
A 2025 Office for Students sexual misconduct survey found that nearly twice as many students reported sexual harassment at selective universities compared to ‘low tariff’ universities. In recent years, Oxford in particular has faced backlash for the mishandling of sexual misconduct cases involving students and staff associated with the university. Though institutional malpractice certainly both emboldens perpetrators and weakens victims, it’s easy to look at official statistics and famous faces and forget that unhealthy sexual attitudes often emerge casually, unremarkably, and without any big names to blame.
When I was in high school, I knew this guy – let’s call him John Smith – whom everybody in my year affectionately called ‘Consent Smith’. The nickname emerged from an instance where he had engaged in some consensually dubious sexual acts with a girl whose identity is unknown to me, but was very public information for most of my classmates. Strangely, though, none of them seemed to recall the origin story when they referred to him this way. It was always said with a laugh and a playful punch on the shoulder, and received with a smirk and eye-roll. I’m ashamed to admit it, but the normalcy lulled me into silence, as I imagine was the case for many of my peers. None of the hush-hush behaviour that typically surrounded criminal conduct, behaviour that suggested people knew what was happening was wrong, was present here – it was completely out in the open. It was funny.
Since starting at Oxford, I have borne witness to countless cases nearly identical to that of John Smith. Variations of ‘rapist’, ‘molestor’, ‘nonce’, and ‘paedophile’ are shouted across hallways, in tones anything other than accusatory. The addressees may be completely innocent, or they may be people publicly known to have displayed sexually inappropriate behaviour. Those that claim to have been sexually harassed at the hands of these friendly ‘molestors’ are told not to flatter themselves. He does this to everyone, they say. Don’t go thinking you’re special now. The plausible deniability is strengthened by the implication that his friends wouldn’t be joking about it if it were serious. Of course, what these people consider ‘serious’ is anybody’s guess.
As women, we are conditioned to think about sex as private, if not illicit and shameful. The casual violations we face every day that we are told to shrug off – but often end up internalising instead – only exacerbate these negative associations. This is part of the reason why, according to a 2021 investigation, 83% of the 3.4 million acts of sexual violence committed every year in the UK go unreported. ‘Locker room talk’ is so clichéd it almost feels removed from reality, but the Chi Phi text chain proves that, amongst men, sex is talked about as a winning game where the opposing side never stood a chance. Fraternities, as well as, say, rugby and football clubs, are able to reinforce this model of thinking through ritualistic synchrony and cyclical violence. As long as hazing is a requirement for men to join masculine social spheres, they will view casual acts of violence as social rather than violatory. As long as other men continue to reaffirm this behaviour as unserious, funny, something to bond over, 2.8 million Jane Does who are never heard from will continue to emerge.
Perhaps the most effective tool we have at our disposal against casual sexism is casual feminism. Whilst it is our hard-earned prerogative to call for radical change, calling out misogynistic and sexually inappropriate behaviour we perceive in our day-to-day interactions is equally important to driving institutional change. One of the greatest resources that Oxford has available to promote casual feminism is collegiate feminist societies. Despite its century-long history as a women’s college, St Hugh’s has only had an active Feminist Society for just over a year. Co-founders Eleanor Suh and Alex Cutmore say carrying the legacy of the college’s history was part of their reason for setting up the society. “It’s important to honour our history,” Alex tells me. “Keeping alive what notable alumni, like Emily Wilding Davison, fought for is one of the central aims of the society.” Eleanor agrees, contending that “Oxford has a very male history in a lot of ways – FemSoc is one way of counteracting that.”
However, it is important to both the founders that FemSoc is a space that allows for communication between students of all genders. “In our experience, the men who attend FemSoc meetings tend to have the right attitude. We are yet to have anyone in attendance who only showed up to make a joke out of everything,” Alex says. “It’s up to the individual space to decide their own guidelines regarding who can attend, but I believe that FemSoc is first and foremost a political space, rather than a representative or social one. The primary factor that should draw people to the society is that they are feminists, not that they are women. To me, it is imperative that all people are welcome – we should be united by our politics, rather than our identities.” I ask them whether they think a tangible stigma inhibits men from contributing meaningfully to feminist discussions.
“I have had conversations with some men who believe they cannot come to FemSoc, even though they identify as feminists, because of a belief that the space isn’t for them. They don’t want to ‘speak over women’.” Eleanor thinks this is a weak excuse. “You can come and just listen! I’ve found that many men intellectually present as feminists, but don’t apply the principles of feminism to their own lives. Part of our objective as a society is to make feminism practical and visible, and not have it sidelined as an abstract, academic ideal. Having a male attendance at meetings where we explicitly discuss topics like sexual assault is necessary. I find it very upsetting when people think they are not allowed to participate in feminist spaces, because having people voice their varied perspectives is what leads to tangible progress.”
I wonder what their experience with rape culture has been, and what role they think the society plays in combating unhealthy sexual attitudes. “Rape culture in university spaces is mostly upheld through humour,” Alex asserts. “What makes hazing in social spaces centred around drinking and sports so powerful is that nobody takes it very seriously. They are means of socialising that are well-integrated into college life. Greek life has an added element of having to pay to become a member, which compounds the corrupted power dynamics, but in order to participate in many collegiate societies here at Oxford, you have to implicitly agree to not interfere with the rituals of that particular social sphere.” FemSoc is both a foil and an accessible alternative to these social spaces. “I believe that FemSoc is a passive threat to rape culture. It’s not just a deterrent, but a way of acknowledging that there isn’t a monoculture at our college.” People who condemn these male-dominated rituals do exist and, using the society as a vehicle, are less afraid to make themselves known, she says. This is a remarkable advantage for all the female members of the college. “Even if you don’t come to meetings, just knowing that FemSoc exists, that there are like-minded people around you, can be comforting.”
Alex and Eleanor agree that despite the positive impact that FemSoc has had on their lives, as well as those of all its members, it is difficult to quantify whether there has been a tangible decrease in sexism in college spaces. As hard as we fight back, we cannot be responsible for the bulk of the necessary changes – that must come from men themselves. What the Cornell case reveals is not that there are some deranged men, or that educational institutions are ill-equipped to respond to reports of sexual violence, or even that the justice system frequently fails victims of sexual violence. All this, we have long known. What it has successfully, awfully brought to light is that for every seven men who commit unimaginable acts of sexual violence, there are 50 men who watch silently. There are 50 men who will later joke about it. I want to be ambitious – I want to say I hope this is where the cycle breaks, and men start speaking out against each other. But let’s start with immediately achievable goals: I hope this will urge the men I know to have the decency not to laugh.
