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Inside Cornell’s Week of Protest

“We won’t be silenced anymore. Our university needs to start protecting us, like they should’ve with Jane Doe and all other survivors on campus.”

At approximately 3 am on Monday, October 5, a glass door shattered at the entrance of Day Hall, Cornell’s main administration building. Anonymous activists painted “SMASH THE PATRIARCHY” and “AT CORNELL RAPISTS ARE PROTECTED PROTESTORS ARE EXPELLED” in red across the walls, marking the beginning of a week of community action. According to a statement from the activists sent to The Cornell Daily Sun, the demonstration was in response to a lawsuit filed September 14 by a former Cornell student who alleges that she was gang raped by seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity in 2024.

In the days that followed, Cornell students, faculty, and staff organized the Justice for Survivors protest, an open town hall, a “campuswide economic blackout,” and a seven-hour sit-in, turning outrage over the allegations—and the university’s handling of them—into a broader call for institutional change.

Hours after the early-morning action at Day Hall, chants echoed across Ho Plaza as the community gathered at 4:30 pm for the student-led Justice for Survivors protest, organized by a coalition of 20 student-led organizations. According to one Cornell professor who has been in Ithaca for decades, the demonstration was “the largest student protest at Cornell since Vietnam.”

Across campus, students raised trembling voices, burst into applause, and brushed away tears. Their faces reflected the anger, hope, and heartbreak of the moment. Chants rang out in the mid-Autumn chill, and protest signs read:

“Cornell admin betrays survivors. Resign now.”

“CU, it’s SA, not essay. Stop protecting rapists.”

“Frats breed rapists.”

“Kotlikoff, there is blood on your hands.”

Protestors’ calls for systemic change were echoed by organizers: “We won’t be silenced anymore. Our university needs to start protecting us, like they should’ve with Jane Doe and all other survivors on campus,” read one post advertising the protest. The rally’s five main demands were that Cornell expel or revoke the degrees of all alleged perpetrators, require independent hearings and minimum sanctions for sexual assault, allow for an external investigation into Cornell’s administration, institute mandatory sexual assault prevention trainings for students and trauma-informed training for CUPD, and fully comply with New York State’s “Enough Is Enough” Law.

At the gathering, Students for a Democratic Cornell (SDC) public relations co-chair Saya Taylor opened the protest with a fiery speech, criticizing the university systems that she said enabled the alleged assault.

“The systems placed by this university and the state of New York have allowed sexual assault culture to thrive and for rape to go unpunished,” Taylor said. “Jane Doe........

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