The allegations in the Cornell case should outrage us. But outrage cannot be the only thing we bring to the table when our students come home from school.
A civil lawsuit alleges that seven fraternity members sexually assaulted a student in October 2024. Prosecutors have now reopened the investigation. Cornell says its own investigation resulted in expulsions and suspensions and that the fraternity chapter remains barred from campus. The civil claims remain unresolved.
This case demands scrutiny. It also demands a conversation in our own homes.
Campus sexual assault is an everyday crisis across this country. Most cases never become national headlines.
Campus Sexual Assault is on the Rise
A multi-year analysis published by researchers at Washington State University found that between 2015 and 2022, the six-month risk of experiencing sexual violence was 74% higher for college-enrolled women (ages 18–24) than for non-enrolled peers of the same age.
Federal data show that the rate of reported on-campus forcible sex offenses rose from 2.2 to 7.5 per 10,000 full-time-equivalent students between 2011 and 2021. Those are reports, not a complete measure of assaults, and increases can reflect changes in reporting.
Still, the scale of the problem should end any illusion that one university’s crisis belongs only to that university.
This is happening everywhere.
Open the Conversation. Then Listen.
When your student comes home, ask: “Have you heard about the Cornell case? What are you and your friends saying about it?”
Give them room to answer. You may hear anger, confusion, skepticism, or something deeply personal. Your response will tell them whether you are someone they can trust.
Then ask:
- Where the Title IX office is and how to contact it?
- Which campus resources are confidential and which employees have to share a report?
- Have you heard about sexual assault on your campus?
- If you thought an assault was happening, what would you do? Who would you call?
- Do you know your campus policies on consent, reporting, and retaliation?
- What would you do if a friend told you they had been assaulted?
Look up the answers together. Save emergency and campus safety numbers. Find the confidential advocate, counseling center, and Title IX contacts. Read what the school says about medical care, supportive measures, and any alcohol or drug amnesty policy.
Do not turn the conversation into a demand for names or details. You can say: “You do not have to tell me someone else’s private story. I want you to know how to get help.”
Teach the Three D’s: Distract, Delegate, Direct
Telling students to “look out for each other” means little unless we teach them what that looks like. The three D’s give them practical options.
Distract: Interrupt the situation. Ask the person to help you find a friend, walk outside with you, or make a phone call. Say, “Come with me. I need your help.” A distraction can create space to check in privately and get someone out of an unsafe situation.
Delegate: Get someone equipped to help. Ask a trusted friend, resident adviser, staff member, or event organizer to intervene. Make a specific request: “Please come with me and check on her.” If someone faces immediate danger, an assault appears to be underway, or someone is unresponsive, call 911. Do not wait for a Title IX office to respond to an emergency.
Direct: When safe, say clearly what needs to happen: “Stop. They cannot consent.” “Back away.” “We are getting help.” Direct intervention also means challenging the friend who treats sexual access as something he is owed.
Students do not need to confront a dangerous person alone. Choose the safest effective option and combine strategies when needed. If there is reason to believe someone is being assaulted, do not let a polite distraction become a substitute for urgent help.
Ask your student to practice: “You see someone who can barely stay awake being led into a bedroom. What do you do?” Or: “Someone posts a message in a group chat suggesting a person is available for sex. How do you respond?”
A group chat is a place to intervene. Refuse to participate, get help, and preserve relevant messages without circulating humiliating content.
Responsibility for an assault belongs to the person who commits it. Bystander education gives others tools to interrupt harm.
We Need to Talk to Our Sons
I am tired of prevention messages that place the heaviest burden on young women: watch your drink, change your clothes, avoid that party, stay with your friends. It’s exhausting and victim blaming.
I want men talking to young men about consent, entitlement, sexism, and accountability. Fathers, coaches, brothers, mentors, and friends need to have these conversations before harm occurs. Use this case to create this dialogue on your campus today!
Sexual violence affects people of every gender. We must also confront its longstanding ties to misogyny, power, and control. CDC identifies hostility toward women, acceptance of violence, and harmful gender norms among risk factors for sexual violence.
No one is entitled to unfettered sexual access to another person. Not because they came upstairs. Or because they flirted. Not because they have had sex before. Or because they’re friends are egging them.
Consent must be freely given, specific, and ongoing. It can be withdrawn. Someone who is asleep, unconscious, or too incapacitated to understand and make a choice cannot consent. Silence, freezing, or an absence of resistance is not permission. These are trauma responses that often the victim cannot control. When the brain recognizes danger, we go into survival mode, some fight, some flee, some freeze and some acquiesce out of a greater fear for physical safety. These are trauma responses based on survival instinct-not active informed choices.
Teach young men to care about the other person’s willingness and well-being, rather than search for a technical excuse for their own conduct. Teach them that humiliating messages and jokes about exploiting someone are moments to challenge their friends.
Sexual assault can disrupt health, education, relationships, employment, and a person’s sense of safety for years. Young men need to understand that damage. They also need to understand that loyalty to a friend never requires helping him harm someone.
When Institutions Fail, Survivors Pay Again
Once again, a civil lawsuit has forced public attention onto allegations and institutional decisions that deserve scrutiny. In the Cornell case, renewed attention preceded the reopening of the criminal investigation.
Civil litigation can demand answers, seek records, and pursue accountability when other systems have failed. Filing a lawsuit does not itself establish liability. But survivors should not have to bear the expense and exposure of litigation to make an institution take their experiences seriously.
The response after an assault matters. Dismissal, blame, unnecessary delays, retaliation, and indifference can compound the original harm. Research on institutional betrayal has linked unsupportive institutional responses with greater trauma-related symptoms.
Students watch how their schools respond. When they see someone dismissed or punished for seeking help, they learn that disclosure may carry another cost. Trust erodes. Other survivors may decide that coming forward is too dangerous.
An institution’s response can help create conditions for recovery or add another injury.
A First Interview May Not Contain the Whole Story
Parents should understand this before judging a survivor’s account.
Trauma can affect how someone encodes, recalls, and describes an experience. A survivor may remember a sound or sensation clearly while struggling with sequence or timing. Some remember substantial detail. Others have gaps. Intoxication can independently impair memory.
Disclosure is also shaped by safety. A person may be afraid of retaliation, ashamed, confused about what happened, or unsure whether the listener will believe them. They may describe only what they feel able to disclose at that moment.
Trauma and distrust are major reasons a first conversation or interview may be incomplete. They are not the only reasons, and they do not establish what happened in any particular case. An investigator still needs to examine evidence carefully. But the first interview should never become an artificial deadline for a survivor to deliver a perfectly organized account.
Ask open questions. Allow pauses. Avoid supplying details. Do not demand that someone explain every gap before receiving support. Have an advocate present.
If your child tells you they were assaulted, start here: “I believe you. This was not your fault. Thank you for telling me. What would help right now?”
Do not make them manage your anger. Help them understand their options and retain control over their next steps.
Turn Outrage Into Responsibility
Let the Cornell case open a conversation that continues after the headlines fade. Take your outrage and start creating conversations in your communities, go to school board meetings, ask for policies and procedures, ask college officials what the response looks like at their school. Create spaces for dialogue and education in your community.
Ask every student whether they know how to intervene, where to get help, and how to support someone who discloses an assault.
Our children need adults who will speak plainly about sexual violence. They need institutions that respond with care and accountability. And they need to hear, before they return to campus, that protecting someone matters more than protecting a friend’s reputation.
Survivor Support and Resources for Parents
You do not have to figure this out alone. Save these resources with your student before they return to campus.
Support for Survivors and Loved Ones
- RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline: Call 800-656-HOPE (4673), text HOPE to 64673, or use online chat for free, confidential support, 24/7. Survivors and loved ones can connect with support and local services.
- Pennsylvania Coalition to Advance Respect: Help in PA: Call 888-772-7227 to connect with a local rape crisis center. Pennsylvania centers provide free, confidential crisis counseling and support for survivors and their families.
- 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: Call or text 988, or use online chat, for emotional distress or suicidal crisis.
- Campus resources: Find your student’s confidential advocate, counseling center, student health services, and Title IX office. Ask which services are confidential before sharing identifying details. Ask about supportive measures and medical care, and how reporting options work.
- Immediate danger or medical emergency: Call 911.
Educational Links for Parents
- NSVRC: Going to College—What Families Need to Know About Sexual Assault and Safety on Campus: A starting point for a family conversation about campus sexual violence.
- RAINN: How to TALK With Survivors of Sexual Violence: Practical guidance on listening, offering support, and respecting a survivor’s choices.
- NSVRC: Six Resources to Help Parents Talk to Kids About Consent: Tools to start consent conversations before college and continue them as children grow.
- Green Dot: The Three D’s: Review distract, delegate, and direct together, then practice how your student could use them.
- NSVRC: Let’s Talk—Campus Bystander Resources: Resources for discussing concerning sexual behavior with friends.
Resources matter most when students feel safe using them. Tell your child: “You can call me. You can ask for help. You do not have to earn my support by telling a perfect story.”