A young woman has filed a civil suit against Cornell University and seven fraternity members she alleges were involved in an incident in which she says she was given drugs and sexually assaulted for seven hours at their college frat house. The suit has brought widespread attention to the alleged assault, which she first reported in October of 2024.
The woman, identified as Jane Doe, went on to drop out of Cornell University. Meanwhile, only two of the seven frat members were expelled, with the others got lesser punishments, including writing an essay, according to the filed complaint.
For me, the horrific details of the case, coupled with the lack of accountability, have been the trigger for decades-old feelings to emerge.
Fifty-two years ago, as a young girl, I was dismissed from Syracuse University. The men who had drugged me, plied me with alcohol and gang-raped me at a fraternity house went on with their lives, graduating with honors.
I’m a nationally exhibited artist, but for decades, I could never say the words out loud that I failed out of art school my freshman year of college.
In 1974, the summer after my freshman year, I received a formal letter from Syracuse University informing me that because of my poor grades during my second semester, I could no longer attend their College of Visual and Performing Arts, although I could enroll in general studies in the larger university. No mention was made of the fact that the first semester I had been an A student.
My identity was so wrapped up in being the “class artist” since high school that this news was devastating. I was mortified, ashamed, and I knew I could never tell anyone ― not my parents, not my brother, not a friend. Ever.
I was so weighed down by the shame and stigma of failure, I didn’t consider the reason behind it. That March, I had been raped during a fraternity party by a gang of frat boys. Paralyzed by fear, I shut down physically and emotionally. I was never the same.
For the second half of my second semester, I secluded myself in my single dorm room, terrified of leaving its safety. This made it impossible to attend my classes, and I failed each one.
In 1973, as a hopeful freshman, Syracuse had promised its students that college life would provide lasting memories. My freshman year at the university indeed provided remembrances that still linger: the chimes from Crouse College, the “freaks” playing Frisbees on the quad, making a late-night “dingle run,” hanging out on M Street.
The boys will be boys mentality was in full force in the multiple fraternity houses that lined the leafy, tree-lined streets of the university. Raucous, boozy, keg parties were the norm. So were sexual assault and harassment. These gracious, stately mansions on Walnut Avenue were breeding grounds for male entitlement ― what happened at Kappa Phi Delta stayed there.
Photo Courtesy Of Sally Edelstein
More than once, I stumbled back to my dorm up on the Mount, shaken, upset and ashamed. The flashbacks of a darkened room, the sound of “Bad Bad Leroy Brown” blaring in the background, quaaludes slipped into a drink, the weight of being pinned down against my will, the struggle against unwanted groping and penetration by multiple drunk boys, the air redolent of pot and the stale yeasty scent of Genesee beer would all flood back years later. Even today, the smell of beer brings up a wave of nausea.
The gang rape was my tipping point, leaving me emotionally and physically immobilized. I would not leave my dorm room for days. The fear was so pronounced there were times I peed into used soda bottles for fear of going to a public bathroom.
It went unreported, because that was the norm, too. Because boys will be boys, it was so easy to brush aside bad behavior. I convinced myself it was my fault, and no one would believe me anyway. I wanted to forget it happened.
There was no name yet for “date rape.” When women of a certain age woke up hungover from a party in a stranger’s room, naked and disoriented, and realized they’d been sexually assaulted, we blamed only ourselves and the alcohol for the assault.
There was no outrage, because who would listen? In an era filled with protests, our voices of protest were ignored. In an era of “student power,” women were still pretty powerless.
Countless women have similar stories. Often, like me, more than one. From unwanted advances to forced sex acts, women are questioned, vilified, doubted and silenced.
We still live in a culture where this behavior is laughed at or excused as school hijinks or college capers ― boys being boys just trying to “get some action.”
Or “free pussy” like a frat boy allegedly posted to his 57 Chi Phi bros at Cornell.
Many years later, in 2019, I was featured in an exhibit at a gallery near the campus in Syracuse. It would be the first time I had returned to the school since I left in 1974. There was a sense of triumph returning as an accomplished artist showing her work, but ghosts accompanied my whole trip.
During the weekend I went with a friend to a familiar college watering hole. Sitting at the long, candy cane-shaped wooden bar, a well-dressed gentleman struck up a conversation with me. He was about my age, and we agreed we were at the university the same year.
Taking generous gulps of his whiskey, he began talking about his frat days, how the 1970s were such a “wild, adventurous time” sexually, and my heart dropped. Looking in his eyes and imagining his ruddy face 50 years younger, I could never say for certain that he was not one of those frat boys that night. I left the bar shaken.
Photo Courtesy Of Sally Edelstein
It was only during the MeToo movement that I quietly began to question my understanding of what had happened to me. Yet I was still unable to speak about it.
Today, at 71, I wonder for the first time where the school was in all this. Why did no one question why a formerly good student was repeatedly absent from class? Why didn’t anyone notice I was sequestered in my room?
No one asked. And I didn’t tell.
I swallowed the pain I experienced, and it remained undigested for years, playing havoc with my psyche and my body. All that stayed with me was shame, which I can now see was grossly misplaced. For half a century, I had spoken about failing art school as though that were the shameful thing. The failure wasn’t in my artistic ability; it was the failure of the system to protect me.
This case, and the outpouring of outrage it prompted, finally helped the 71-year-old artist I became speak out about what happened to that 18-year-old girl back then.
Now the Cornell case is being reopened. If people hadn’t used their voices to demand accountability, nothing would have changed. I’m finally ready to use mine.
Sally Edelstein is an award winning, nationally exhibited collage artist. Her essays have appeared in The Ethel, N.Y. Daily News, Ms Magazine, Independent, Next Avenue and Kveller. She is the author-illustrator of “This Year’s Girl” (Doubleday). She lives in Huntington, New York, with her dog Moe.
Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.
