In the wake of the horrific sexual violence allegations at Cornell University, Jane Doe’s lawsuit against her former school and the alleged perpetrators has already generated important scrutiny of the campus investigation and the local prosecutor’s response. There is also a much-needed spotlight on a flawed New York law that limits prosecutors’ ability to file rape charges based on alcohol- or drug-related incapacity if the victim drank or used drugs voluntarily. At this point, it may be tempting to think legal and policy fixes will prevent this situation from happening again.
But while better laws, policies and trainings are necessary and important, they are not enough. Just over a decade ago, campuses were filled with students challenging their colleges and universities for not responding effectively to sexual assault complaints, as students at Cornell are doing now. Their efforts helped to prompt policy and legal changes, including New York’s Enough Is Enough law, which mandated an affirmative-consent standard, created a Students’ Bill of Rights and required the state’s higher education institutions to do climate surveys, add resources and offer prevention programming. Yet surveys show that, at many colleges, sexual assault remains startlingly common, especially but not only for women.
If we are serious about addressing this problem, we have to understand, and change, the conditions in which campus sexual assault happens. Real life at college takes place in a world of social networks and pressures, and university policies and state laws are unlikely to be top of mind when students make plans for a night out.
This means that government leaders, campus officials, families and students themselves must look hard at how and why unwanted sex and assault happen among students, not only at Cornell but around the country. As the authors of Sexual Citizens, an in-depth study of Columbia University undergraduates, put it, understanding campus sexual assault requires looking at the whole “ecology,” considering individuals and their problem behaviors “in the broader context of their relationships, their pre-college histories, the organizations they are part of, and the cultures that influence them.”
Young adults arrive at college as a diverse group in nearly every way, including their past sexual experiences, both positive and negative, and in what they know about sex, what they want for themselves and what they want from others. Research also shows that many middle and high school students learn about sexual decision-making at least in part by watching pornography, which often portrays physical aggression toward women, including gagging and slapping, as neutral or positive, and depicts choking and discomfort as an ordinary part of sexual encounters. It would be naïve to assume that these messages, whether from pornography, popular culture or public figures, do not shape how young people think about this intimate part of their lives.
We also know that short programs during college orientation have little or no impact on students’ behavior, as there is hardly time or capacity to have students reflect on real-life situations. More intensive programs show promise by teaching students to assess risk, recognize warning signs and defend themselves, but they are rarely offered and not required.
The allegations in the Cornell lawsuit and other reported assaults raise questions that students everywhere could be asked to consider: Did the accused students who admitted to their sexual conduct with Jane Doe believe she was enjoying her experience? If yes, why, and if no, why did they continue? If her enjoyment did not occur to them, why not? If others knew what was happening, what stopped them from speaking up? What do students, themselves, think might make a difference?
Asking these questions, really listening to the answers and involving students in developing and testing ways to make affirmative consent a personal priority—in addition to a policy requirement—seems like a reasonable place to start if the goal is to change behavior.
This is precisely where government and institutional leadership can make a real difference. Supporting well-rounded research to inform campus programming, in addition to creating short-term task forces and considering law and policy changes, can enable prevention efforts to continue after the spotlight moves on, as it always does.
Legal oversight and policy fixes matter. But if we do not invest in understanding how the alleged assault at Cornell—along with the many less publicized assaults that profoundly affect the lives of students and graduates alike—might have happened, we will have little reason to be surprised when the next heartbreaking reports come to light.
