Last year, I wrote an article about my choice to disaffiliate from my sorority following what I felt was an inherent link between Greek Life and sexual assault on Cornell’s campus. Perhaps it was naive of me, but I felt at that time that there was a mounting pressure on Cornell’s administration to do something. I thought that the horrific occurrence at Chi Phi brought with it a sort of finality. Then I thought back to the incidents that occurred during my freshman year — a group of assaults at a fraternity that also held an air of finality about them too, but still no substantial strides were made. Still, I had some hope.
Unfortunately, that small ounce of hope disappeared toward the end of last semester when Cornell emailed its students the results of its annual Survey of Sexual Assault and Related Misconduct. The survey is conducted by the Sexual Harassment and Assault — Response and Education (SHARE) Office. In addition to conducting this survey, SHARE provides a number of resources to students who need them. They offer a variety of online resources, manage the Victim Advocacy Program and also work to utilize a public health approach to preventing sexual assault on Cornell’s Campus. In order to conduct the survey, the SHARE office sent the survey out to 6,000 students across all of Cornell’s campuses. They received a 15% response rate, which was relatively low compared to recent years, but the results were telling: things are worse.
According to the survey results sent out, there was an increase in the percentage of Cornell students who experienced a non-consensual sexual experience involving force or incapacitation since being a student at Cornell. The survey suggests that number is about 15% of students, an increase from the 11% of students reporting such experiences in the 2023 survey. Undergraduate women were more vulnerable in the past year than in previous years — their experiences made up 35% of total experiences reported as opposed to the 20% benchmark set by years past. Interestingly, this rise does not seem to be due to a decline in resources or decline in knowledge of these resources. In fact, the opposite is true. According to the survey, “Awareness of support services like the SHARE website and Title IX coordinator has grown, as 23% of students who responded as having experienced nonconsensual sexual contact in 2025 contacted a formal resource — up from 11% in 2023.” It seems students are aware of where to go in the event they have a non-consensual experience, but that has little bearing on whether or not sexual assaults are still happening. The contrasting nature of the statistics begs the question: If Cornell’s resources are more plentiful and prominent than before, why does the problem persist?
In my opinion, the reason for this problem’s persistence reveals itself in another set of statistics sent out by the survey: where assaults are frequently happening. As it turns out, the answer is Cornell affiliated and endorsed fraternity houses and annexes. Incidents at fraternity locations made up a whopping 20% of all assaults against undergraduate women.
It follows that if Cornell administrators wanted substantive change, they would start by addressing the area where data clearly shows there is a problem. In their email they suggested that they have already begun this with an education series aimed at educating women in sororities called the Enhanced Access, Acknowledge, Act (EAAA), a Sexual Assault Resistance Education program. The website for the EAAA program explains that it consists of “four three-hour units that involve games, lectures, discussion, and application and practice activities.” According to the SHARE Office, there is a similar program for fraternity members called the AM/PM Project. While seemingly valiant efforts on behalf of the administration, the focus is on the wrong solution.
In reality, a step toward a real solution is quite simple. I am not naive enough to believe that eliminating Greek Life from Cornell’s campus will prevent the 20% of sexual assault cases that happen in fraternity houses. However, with such a strong link to sexual assault cases, allowing their continuance is a mistake. There appears to be a tie between fraternities and sexual assaults that is irreconcilable, even when education programs are in place for members. In 2021, 25% of all incidents reported by women occurred in a fraternity house or annex. The 2023 survey indicated that 17% of all incidents happened in a fraternity house, and 25% of all incidents reported by women happened in a fraternity house. Following both surveys, education programs were recommended and implemented, yet the 2025 survey indicates that things have not changed much at all. There is an undeniable cycle of poor behavior and subsequent ‘solutions’ proposed.
I inquired about the SARM survey and Cornell’s Media Relations Department acknowledged in an email that, “education alone is never enough to create culture change. To see real and lasting reductions in sexual violence, we need to look carefully at the experiences of victims, the factors that contribute to perpetration and also opportunities to make meaningful changes in the systems, spaces, and norms that allow harm to occur.” My remaining question then is this: What are those structural changes? When are they coming? What percentage of sexual assaults have to be linked to fraternity houses until Cornell eliminates them from campus entirely? This is not to say that the SHARE Office does not provide extremely helpful support to survivors, because they certainly do, but, if Cornell’s administration wanted structural change to eliminate this problem, they would be seriously considering eliminating Greek Life entirely. Until this option is explored, I am weary of any seemingly good faith efforts on behalf of the administration to solve this problem.
Rachel Dunifon, the co-chair of the Presidential Task Force on Campus Sexual Assault, declined a request for an interview on the 2025 SARM Survey results.
Caitlin Gallagher is a senior in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations. She can be reached at cmg323@cornell.edu.
