Emerson Pieper, staff writer
Content Warning: Sexual Assault
I don’t think there is a polite way to talk about the Cornell case. What happened to the victim is horrifying, but so is everything surrounding it: the people who may have watched, the people who may have stayed silent, and a university whose response I find deeply inadequate. At some point, I stopped caring about finding the most diplomatic way to describe it. How many opportunities were there for someone to say, “This is wrong,” and how many times did people choose to stay silent?
“How many opportunities were there for someone to say, “This is wrong,” and how many times did people choose to stay silent?”
emerson pieper
The part that makes me especially angry is Cornell’s response. I understand that universities have disciplinary procedures; I understand that investigations are complicated and I understand that not every person involved in a case can receive the same punishment. I cannot, however, understand how a case this disturbing can end with some of the students involved being given essays, workshops and educational assignments as part of their consequences.
There is something deeply unsettling about the idea that a student can allegedly participate in an event where a woman is treated as though her body is communal property, and the institutional response can amount, in part, to telling him to write about what he learned from the experience.
And then there is the text “free pussy in alum pu.” I cannot get past those first two words. Not because it is particularly shocking language for a college group chat, but because of what it represented. A woman was reduced to an opportunity available. The language itself tells me something about the culture surrounding the situation too, and I think it deserves far more scrutiny than it has gotten.
There were reportedly 57 active members in the Chi Phi group chat. Seven of them were punished for her assault. We do not know what everyone saw or understood about the situation, but I do think it is fair to ask what kind of environment allows a message like that to be sent about an actual person and does not immediately produce a response of, “What the hell are you talking about?”
Scott Kretzschmar’s case makes this even more complicated. Cornell found him responsible for attempted sexual exploitation after determining that he entered the room intending to observe a woman nude or engaged in sexual activity without her knowledge or consent. His argument is that he never touched her.
Even if I accepted that explanation—which I don’t—I would still ask why was his instinct to watch? If someone believes a woman is being sexually exploited, the normal response should not be curiosity. The response should be concern, and it disgusts me that it wasn’t for any of the men involved.
There were so many opportunities to make a different choice. Someone could have stopped the situation; someone could have questioned the message; someone could have checked on her. Someone could have decided that whatever was happening upstairs wasn’t okay.
Instead, the alleged behaviour continues, and when the university finally found out, Cornell had another opportunity to make a choice. I do not think it made the right one. A university’s response to sexual violence should make its position unmistakable. Instead, Cornell’s response has left me questioning what exactly it believes accountability is supposed to look like.
The president of Cornell University, Michael I. Kotlikoff himself, said: “Only those who perpetrate sexual violence benefit from its concealment.” I think Cornell should remember its own words.