“This is not simply a story about one fraternity or one university. It is about power. Universities do not exist outside of the struggles and realities of society. They are institutions with money, donors, administrators, corporate partnerships, boards, lawyers, and reputations to protect. Fraternities operate within that same system of privilege and institutional power.”
Editor’s note: This story by Luz Melissa Cortes Nieto was originally published in the People’s Tribune’s sister publication, the Tribuno Del Pueblo.
On October 2024, in the midst of pro-Palestinian encampments across college campuses, Cornell University banned four students from campus for three years after participating in a Palestinian protest that shut down the university’s career fair. Three of the students were arrested. Their punishment came in the middle of a broader crackdown on student demonstrations against Israel’s war in Gaza, with dozens of Cornell students facing arrest or disciplinary action for protest activity.
That same month, a 20-year-old Cornell student alleges that she was drugged and sexually assaulted by multiple men at a Chi Phi fraternity house.
The young woman, identified as Jane Doe, alleges that fraternity members gave her ketamine, alcohol, and marijuana before sexually assaulting her while she was incapacitated. Her lawsuit also includes a group text allegedly inviting other fraternity members upstairs, referring to her as “free pussy.”
Let’s think about these contrasting scenarios.
Students protesting a genocide were quickly identified as a threat to university operations. Their bodies, their politics, and their presence were treated as a disruption that demanded punishment.
But when a young woman reported being drugged and sexually assaulted at a fraternity, the university was much slower to hold anyone accountable.
Cornell eventually expelled two of the students involved, while the Chi Phi chapter was barred from campus. However, the remaining accused students faced no meaningful disciplinary consequences. Some were reportedly required to write essays to the university instead of expulsion, with that assignment being treated as their punishment. No criminal charges were initially filed against the seven men accused of participating in the assault.
On September 2026, Jane Doe filed a civil lawsuit, causing renewed public attention to the case and prompting the criminal investigation to be reopened.
This is not simply a story about one fraternity or one university. It is about power. Universities do not exist outside of the struggles and realities of society. They are institutions with money, donors, administrators, corporate partnerships, boards, lawyers, and reputations to protect. Fraternities operate within that same system of privilege and institutional power.
And when protecting an institution’s reputation becomes more urgent than protecting a student’s safety, who is the institution actually serving?
We are constantly told that universities are places where young people learn, grow, and become leaders. But what are they learning when political protest is punished while survivors of sexual violence spend years fighting to be heard?
The problem is bigger than the ‘Cornell 7’ , whose names are Matthew Ingalls, Jonathan Newell. Winston Lee. Gillio Lopes. Diego Sarabia. Scott Norris. Scott Kretzschmar. It is the culture that allows powerful institutions to manage public relations, protect their names, and minimize scandal.
This is how patriarchy survives: not only through individual acts of violence, but through the institutions that make that violence easier to ignore.
The same system that tells protesters to remain silent tells survivors to wait. It tells students that disruption is unacceptable while asking victims to be patient. It protects the university’s name while leaving people to live with the consequences. Title IX is supposed to protect students. But what happens when the institution responsible for investigating harm is the same institution worried about its reputation, donors, fraternity relationships, and legal liability?
We should not accept institutions that are more afraid of embarrassment than injustice. We should not accept a society where a student’s political dissent leads to immediate punishment while a survivor can spend years fighting for accountability.
Silence protects power. Accountability means confronting it.
Luz Melissa Cortes Nieto is a Gen X student majoring in Communication with a minor in Journalism. She has always had a passion for writing and the environment. As a member of the Tribuno del Pueblo Editorial Board, she is the Climate Change Desk. She hopes to bring awareness about climate change and how we can all come together to mitigate environmental consequences.
