Protecting women demands a culture that holds men accountable, supports independent investigations and models leadership willing to enforce meaningful consequences.

One of my earliest memories of college is a young woman whose story I have carried quietly for more than 40 years.

It was the fall of 1985, my first few months at San Diego State University . We were young women beginning our lives, finding our people, and imagining our futures. Then came news that an 18-year-old Delta Gamma pledge had reported being raped at the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity house.

I knew who she was, though we weren’t social friends. I was close to women in her sorority. Behind the headlines was someone we recognized. Her private suffering had become a public story. It involved a popular fraternity on campus (Pi Kappa Alpha), a lot of drinking, a young sorority pledge, and numerous fraternity men sexually assaulting her while she was unconscious.

The Los Angeles Times subsequently reported that university findings included physical abuse and destruction of evidence. The fraternity was banned from campus, and the young woman quietly left school.

Forty-one years later, reading the allegations at Cornell University, I find myself returning to those first months of college. The years have passed. Too much remains painfully familiar.

Fast forward to 2026. A former Cornell student, identified as Jane Doe, alleges that seven fraternity members sexually assaulted her in 2024 after she became incapable of consenting. Prosecutors have reopened the criminal investigation. Cornell says it investigated and imposed sanctions, including suspensions and expulsions. Yet troubling questions persist about the decision not to prosecute in 2024. District Attorney Matthew Van Houten has defended that decision by citing her signed statement. He now says he had not reviewed the transcript of her police interview before declining charges. The distinction raises serious questions: What evidence was gathered, what reached prosecutors, and was her account fully examined before the door to prosecution was closed?

Some defendants deny wrongdoing. The allegations must be examined through a fair process; a civil complaint is not a criminal conviction.

Institutional accountability cannot wait for us to stop asking questions.

Who protects a young woman when she is vulnerable?

Who listens when she reports harm?

Who ensures her education, privacy, and future receive the same consideration as those of promising young men?

Young Women Are Showing Us What Leadership Looks Like

I am proud of the young women at The Cornell Daily Sun who have helped bring this story into public view.

In a September 28 interview with NPR , editor-in-chief Sophia Dasser described the staff’s care for Jane Doe’s anonymity and its demands for accountability. Before the story gained national attention, the editorial board published a challenge titled “Cornell Won’t, We Will.” Its requests included published standards for lifting interim suspensions and anonymized information about misconduct complaints, outcomes, and sanctions.

These journalists are demonstrating leadership through careful reporting and difficult questions. They are scrutinizing an institution far more powerful than they are.

After decades of writing about, teaching, and working with women and young women, their example gives me hope. Women are changing the game by insisting that their experiences enter the public record and that those exercising power answer for their decisions.

Stop Making Women Responsible for Their Own Safety

We teach young women to watch their drinks, watch their clothes, watch their surroundings, and watch one another. We tell them which parties to avoid and how to get home safely.

Where is the equally urgent instruction to young men?

Do not exploit someone’s intoxication. Do not mistake vulnerability for permission. Do not encourage abuse, conceal it, or excuse it. When someone is in danger, intervene safely and summon help.

Practical precautions can help people navigate danger. They cannot make a woman responsible for another person’s decision to assault her.

Nor should reporting begin another cycle of harm through disbelief, humiliation, retaliation, or barriers to support. A survivor should not have to sacrifice her education to obtain safety.

The CDC’s review of sexual-violence risk factors identifies hostility toward women, association with sexually aggressive peers, tolerance of sexual violence, weak sanctions, and norms supporting male superiority and sexual entitlement. These are risk factors, not explanations establishing what happened in a particular case. They nevertheless give us concrete places to intervene.

“Bro culture” becomes dangerous when loyalty means protecting a friend from accountability rather than challenging his conduct.

Academic Excellence Cannot Certify Character

The Cornell lawsuit’s account of a Snapchat message inviting others to sexual access to a young woman is especially disturbing. If substantiated, it demands a reckoning with entitlement, dehumanization, and peer approval.

Admission to an Ivy League university may demonstrate academic achievement. It cannot certify character.

We need men willing to challenge their friends, interrupt degrading behavior, and reject excuses. Scott Galloway’s writing on boys and men emphasizes the need for mentorship and male role models. That offers a constructive place to begin: adults helping boys develop purpose, relationships, and responsibility.

Supporting boys and demanding accountability belong together are not competing goals.

Give Boundaries Meaningful Consequences

My recommendations draw on years of work as an attorney, in conflict resolution, as a university adjunct professor, and speaking with women and young women at universities, in corporations, and around the world.

I also bring the perspective of a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, one of the Divine Nine historically Black Greek-letter organizations. I understand the value of sisterhood, service, and belonging—and the responsibility that comes with membership.

Universities should provide substantive instruction on consent, incapacitation, sexual assault, reporting, and safe intervention beginning freshman year and continuing through college. It must be meaningful and mandatory. Clicking through a presentation is an inadequate measure of learning.

Rules also need consequences. Disciplinary standards should be clear, consistently enforced, and grounded in a fair process. A student’s academic promise, family influence, or career prospects should never purchase an exception.

Enforcement requires trained personnel, consistent standards, and resources. A severe rule that leaders decline to enforce offers little protection.

Make Investigations Credible and Independent

When a student reports sexual assault, two different systems may come into play. Law enforcement can investigate whether a crime occurred. Separately, a university has responsibilities under Title IX and its own disciplinary policies to respond to sexual misconduct, provide support, and determine whether a student violated university rules. A campus process does not replace a criminal investigation, and the two can proceed separately.

That leaves universities in the difficult position of investigating misconduct within their own communities while also facing reputational, legal, and financial consequences from what those investigations uncover.

I believe every campus sexual-assault allegation should receive an independent investigation by qualified professionals outside university leadership’s chain of command.

The Title IX office should provide records and cooperate, while coordinating required protections and support. It should not control the investigation or its findings.

For independence to mean something, investigators must have access to relevant evidence, protection from institutional interference, and transparent appointment procedures. Their work must protect privacy and provide a fair opportunity for all parties to be heard.

Universities would retain responsibility for their legal obligations and disciplinary decisions. Criminal investigations would remain the responsibility of law enforcement. Outsourcing fact-finding must not become a way to outsource accountability.

Universities should examine the environments in which they allow alcohol or consider alcohol-free events, and enforce strict rules against serving minors. Likewise, blanket bans can push drinking “underground” into far less supervised settings. Whatever policy is adopted, alcohol consumption never grants permission to assault someone.

Approved fraternity parties should have trained, sober monitors with authority to stop an event, enforce capacity limits, and summon medical assistance. Supervision should be independent enough to withstand pressure from hosts.

We recognize the need for supervision at high school proms and dances. University social life also deserves serious oversight.

Monitors cannot guarantee safety, and university authority over off-campus properties varies. Those challenges require coordination with property owners, national organizations, and local authorities.

Invest In Prevention That Has Evidence Behind It

Published research offers guidance beyond promises.

The CDC’s Sexual Violence Prevention Resource for Action describes Coaching Boys Into Men , which equips coaches to promote respectful relationships among male high school athletes. Evaluations found reductions in negative bystander behavior and dating-violence perpetration. CDC also cautions that many approaches engaging men and boys still need stronger evaluation.

A randomized study led by researchers Ann Coker and Heather Bush evaluated Green Dot across 26 Kentucky high schools over five years. When fully implemented, the program reduced self-reported sexual-violence perpetration and victimization.

These findings support sustained efforts to change peer behavior. They do not establish that a single orientation session will produce the same results on every college campus. Programs need faithful implementation, funding and ongoing assessment.

Underreporting also complicates measurement. A Bureau of Justice Statistics study covering 1995–2013 found that 80% of rape and sexual-assault victimizations among female college students ages 18–24 went unreported to police. That historical finding is not a current reporting rate, but it illustrates why complaint totals alone cannot measure safety.

Redefining Women’s Freedom Requires Action

It is 2026. Too many women still navigate their lives with a calculation: What must I do to stay safe, and will anyone stand with me if I am harmed?

Freedom means being able to pursue an education, exercise bodily autonomy and build a future without violence — or the fear that reporting it will bring further harm. Making that freedom real requires institutions that enforce consequences, fair processes that people can trust and communities that refuse to excuse abuse.

Stop blaming women. Teach men to challenge their peers. Protect survivors’ privacy and access to education. Ensure fair procedures, enforce consequences and invest in prevention that works.

Forty-one years after those first months at San Diego State, I want this generation of young women to inherit more than our warnings. I want them to inherit institutions worthy of their trust and a freedom they can live.

The young women at Cornell are showing us what it means to use a voice. Those who hold power must now show us what it means to accept responsibility.