The case unfolding at Cornell University in the United States has prompted widespread public outrage.
Authors
- Sarah Vrankovich
Research Fellow, La Trobe University
- Camille Schloeffel
PhD Candidate, Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University
- Jessica Ison
Senior Lecturer and Deputy Director, Reducing Gender-Based Violence Research Group, La Trobe University, La Trobe University
A former student, Jane Doe (a pseudonym), has filed a civil lawsuit reporting she was drugged and raped by seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity in October 2024, and that Cornell failed to adequately protect and support her.
News reports say messages were sent in a Snapchat group chat sharing what the men were doing and encouraging others to join. Not a single member of the 50-person group reported it to police.
When Jane Doe made a report to the Cornell University Police Department, no criminal charges were initially laid . But the Tompkins County District Attorney has reopened the investigation following the lawsuit and said the case will be presented to a grand jury.
Cornell says its own investigation resulted in sanctions on some of the students involved, including suspensions and expulsions, and the Chi Phi chapter remains closed. Some of the accused men have denied the allegations, while others haven’t said one way or the other.
Sexual violence is often framed as the actions of “bad” individuals . But the Cornell investigation also draws attention to the social environments in which sexual violence occurs .
The group chat messages did not exist in isolation. They were exchanged between peers, within a fraternity, within a university.
These institutional environments shape what is seen as normal: what friends laugh at or challenge, what earns approval, whose safety matters, and whether harmful behaviour has social consequences . It’s these forces that must be reckoned with to prevent sexual violence.
A long-standing problem
In Australia, the 2021 National Student Safety Survey found one in six university students had experienced sexual harassment and one in 20 had experienced sexual assault since starting university.
These rates are significantly higher for women, transgender and gender-diverse students.
After years of advocacy , Australia now has a National Higher Education Code to Prevent and Respond to Gender-based Violence . The code requires universities to respond to and address the underlying drivers of sexual violence and create safer environments.
This raises important questions about how we design sexual violence prevention programs in university settings.
A focus on individuals
Sexual violence prevention has traditionally focused heavily on risk , such as what makes someone more likely to perpetrate or experience harm and how we can reduce that risk. University prevention often takes a similar approach.
Across our research , we have found piecemeal, inconsistent approaches to prevention. Some students are taught basic modules on consent, how to be a bystander, and how to recognise dangerous situations. Others are given warnings about alcohol and other drugs.
Individual approaches like this can shift responsibility onto those most likely to experience violence, such as asking women to watch their drinks , stay with friends, recognise the warning signs or say “no”.
These approaches play an important role and we’re not saying they should disappear. But teaching people to recognise and respond to risk is different from changing the cultures and systems that create that risk.
Attempts to change individual behaviour by promoting attitude change cannot be our main approach to prevention. We need to do more than teach people to navigate unsafe environments.
What if we shifted focus?
In our newly published research , we argue sexual violence prevention needs to pay much more attention to strengths-based protective factors.
Risk-based prevention asks what is going wrong and how we can stop it. A strengths-based approach also asks what needs to be present for people to be safe, connected and happy.
Instead of only preventing harm, it aims to build the conditions that make harm less possible in the first place.
This means looking beyond risky behaviours to the resources, relationships and environments that help communities thrive . That could include economic security, positive sexual cultures , supportive communities, and relationships based on care and reciprocity.
Other areas of health and violence prevention have already been leading this way of thinking.
The aim is not to make people more resilient to unsafe conditions. It is to hold institutions accountable for creating better conditions.
For universities, this could mean looking beyond whether students have completed a consent or bystander module. It could mean examining what misogynistic behaviours are rewarded or challenged within residential colleges and friendship groups , facilitating campus cultures where care and accountability are expected and challenging harmful norms does not risk social exclusion.
It also means listening to the people and communities most affected by sexual violence to understand what they need to change to feel safe and supported.
Prevention needs to go deeper
The reports of rape at Cornell remain subject to legal processes, but the group chat raises questions beyond this case.
Group chats are social spaces. They reveal what peers encourage, challenge or allow to pass without comment.
None of this means individuals are not responsible for their actions. Individual responsibility and structural prevention are not opposites.
But we cannot solve a structural problem only by asking people to behave differently. We need to focus more on what it will take for the status quo to become that sexual violence is unimaginable in the first place.
The National Sexual Assault, Family and Domestic Violence Counselling Line – 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault.
