Cornell Is the Headline. Title IX Is the Story.

This Radiant Report is a little longer than usual, but this conversation deserves more than a repost or a few minutes of outrage. It deserves our attention, our care and, most importantly, our action. 

Everyone is talking about Cornell. We have seen the texts, timelines and reactions alongside important conversations about victim blaming, consent, accountability and bystander intervention. Those conversations matter, and what Jane Doe has described experiencing is horrific. I do not want to simply repeat what you have already read or heard. I want to ask what we can learn from this case so we can do better for survivors. 

The timing made that question impossible for me to ignore. While Cornell dominated the conversation, the U.S. Department of Education formally restored the 2020 Title IX regulations on September 28. I have heard some discussion about Title IX, but far less about what this case might reveal about the system survivors enter when they report to their university. If we have the same outrage every time a case like this captures public attention without learning from it, we are going to keep having the same conversation. 

Title IX is a civil rights law meant to protect a student’s access to education. It is not the criminal justice system, yet the 2020 regulations include features that can make the process feel much more like an adversarial legal proceeding. In covered college cases, schools must hold live hearings where advisors can question the other party and witnesses. The 2024 regulations took a different approach, giving colleges more flexibility in how they assessed credibility without requiring that same live-hearing model in every case. Those regulations were vacated in January 2025, and the 2020 framework is once again in effect. 

What matters here is what these different approaches mean for survivors. Some students may choose to report through Title IX specifically because they do not want to pursue a criminal case. We already know there are significant barriers to reporting sexual violence to law enforcement. Yet choosing the campus process can still mean entering a months-long investigation and formal hearing where evidence, statements and credibility are examined. If Title IX is not the criminal justice system, we should be asking why parts of the process can feel so much like it. Due process matters, and accused students deserve a fair process. Fairness for respondents matters, and fairness for survivors has to matter too. We should not have to sacrifice one to protect the other. 

Cornell gives us a reason to examine that balance and what accountability actually looks like on a college campus. Cornell has confirmed that its process resulted in expulsions and suspensions, while Jane Doe’s attorney has said two defendants were expelled. Her lawsuit also alleges that several defendants were given the opportunity to submit essays to mitigate their conduct. Cornell disputes claims that essays were the only consequence. When a case involves allegations as serious as an alleged gang rape, we should be asking what meaningful accountability from a university actually looks like. 

We should also be asking what happens to the survivor’s education. How can we talk about protecting a survivor’s access to education without talking about what we are asking her to return to? Jane Doe’s attorney says she wanted to leave Cornell after the alleged assault, her family’s request for a tuition refund was denied and she ultimately left the university. She is reportedly no longer enrolled in college, while other men named in the lawsuit remained enrolled at Cornell. That does not determine what happened in the underlying allegations, but Title IX exists to protect access to education, yet the student who reported the alleged sexual violence is reportedly the one no longer accessing it. Compliance and support are not the same thing. 

Training is another piece of this conversation. Federal regulations require Title IX personnel to receive training on the process, but they do not specifically require specialized education in sexual violence, trauma responses or trauma-informed interviewing as part of that federal baseline. That matters when roughly one in four undergraduate women in one of the largest campus sexual assault studies reported nonconsensual sexual contact involving physical force or inability to consent since enrolling (Cantor et al., 2020). Freezing, fawning, compartmentalizing or continuing communication can occur after trauma. None proves or disproves an allegation, but if you are responsible for evaluating sexual violence, you should understand sexual violence. 

Federal requirements are the floor, not the ceiling. Rape crisis centers across the country already provide education, prevention resources and expertise, often at no cost. The Dallas Area Rape Crisis Center (DARCC), for example, offers free virtual education nationwide. College students can also get involved through Allies to Advocates (A2A), DARCC’s student-led college prevention and advocacy program. If education is available, accessible and free, staying uninformed is a choice. We should not wait for another case to capture national attention before learning more. 

That responsibility belongs to all of us. Students can ask who handles these cases and what training they receive. Parents can ask what would happen if their child reported sexual violence. Faculty and staff can learn how to respond. Alumni and donors can ask what the institutions they support are doing beyond federal compliance. Universities can invest in prevention, bring in experts and examine whether their processes actually allow survivors to continue accessing their education. Outrage on social media is not enough. 

Title IX is only one lens through which this case deserves scrutiny. Cornell’s response, the law enforcement investigation, decisions made by prosecutors and the criminal justice process all deserve the same willingness to ask hard questions. There are also important conversations about consent, victim blaming, bystander intervention, institutional culture, accountability and the response to Jane Doe. The concerns raised here are not the full conversation about Title IX either. Training, hearings, accountability and access to education are only a few pieces of a much larger system worth examining. There is more to question here than one article could or should try to answer. 

Eventually, the news cycle will move on from Cornell. Our attention cannot move on with it. Keep being upset. Keep learning. Keep asking questions. Keep paying attention even when there is not a viral case reminding us to care. Our students deserve that from us every day. 

References 

Association of American Universities. (2020). Report on the AAU campus climate survey on sexual assault and misconduct. AAU Campus Climate Survey 

Cronin, M. C., & Bhargava, V. (2026, September 28). Cornell denies that defendants in alleged Chi Phi gang rape only wrote essays, confirms expulsions. The Cornell Daily Sun. The Cornell Daily Sun article 

Dodd, J. (2026, September 29). Alleged Cornell rape victim wanted to leave university after frat incident, but school refused to refund her tuition: Lawyer. People. People article 

U.S. Department of Education. (2026, September 28). U.S. Department of Education formally rescinds the Biden administration’s illegal Title IX rewrite, reinstating the 2020 regulation. U.S. Department of Education 

U.S. Department of Education. (n.d.). Sex discrimination: Overview of the law. U.S. Department of Education Title IX overview