Reminder from Cornell: Silence enables sexual violence

The conversation that has revived with Cornell must continue everywhere.

3 min readOct 7, 2026 06:05 AM IST First published on: Oct 7, 2026 at 06:05 AM IST

A woman was sexually assaulted by seven men at a fraternity house in a US university which, when informed of the crime, allegedly did little to punish the perpetrators. This is the bare outline of a case that has rocked the US for over a week. The survivor filed a civil suit last month against Cornell University, the Chi Phi fraternity as well as the seven men who allegedly raped her in 2024, following which state prosecutors in New York, where the university is located, reopened a criminal inquiry into the incident.

Horrific as the assault was, what stands out in the Cornell case is that other men with knowledge of what was unfolding did nothing to inform the authorities or stop the assault; evidence from a fraternity group chat points to encouragement of the crime. Whether this range of disturbing reactions is rooted in a misplaced sense of loyalty, fear of offending one’s peers or causing social discomfort or just indifference is immaterial. The larger picture they paint is one of impunity, where the cost of silence and inaction is paid, over and over, by women. This is why it is also a mistake to limit the conversation to what unfolded on one US university campus or treat it as the aberrant behaviour of a handful. That would risk underplaying the extent to which everyday sexism and gender stereotypes, normalisation of rape in the form of jokes and the sexualisation of women shape views about consent, about who deserves to be punished and who is shamed for what was done to them — across cultures and borders. Its echoes can be heard everywhere, from the cases brought to light by the global MeToo movement to the long battle of India’s women wrestlers to bring a powerful man to account.

The survivor of the Cornell case had to drop out of college; the university closed the case after a half-hearted investigation. Two of her attackers were expelled while the rest were asked to write essays to “mitigate” the harm they had caused. This stark asymmetry speaks of a structural injustice where reluctance to acknowledge and confront rape emboldens would-be perpetrators and ensures that the cycle of violence continues. The conversation that has revived with Cornell must continue everywhere.