Dear Pepperdine community,
Devastating news regarding sexual assault cases on college campuses has spread across the country — most notably, the case of the Cornell 7.
Jane Doe, a former Cornell student, filed a lawsuit against Cornell University, several Chi Phi fraternity organizations, seven current and former students and others for an alleged gang rape at the Chi Phi fraternity house in 2024.
Cornell’s student newspaper, The Cornell Daily Sun, published a story about the lawsuit Sept. 18 before publishing an editorial titled “Cornell Won’t, We Will,” naming the seven men in Jane Doe’s lawsuit and calling on the university to do better.
“During an interview with The Sun, the sexual assault task force co-lead and Dean of Students Marla Love said that ‘the charge was never for us to solve the problem,'” The Sun wrote in their editorial.
Between 2023 and 2025 — part of which the university spent creating its sexual assault task force as a five-month-late response to Jane Doe’s alleged rape — Cornell saw an increase in “nonconsensual sexual contact” from 11% to 15%, with a fifth of the incidents against undergraduate women occurring in fraternity houses or annexes.
“If the task force’s mission was not supposed to solve the problem of sexual assault, as Love has stated, then it has been a resounding success,” The Sun wrote.
The increase in sexual assault cases on college campuses is a conversation that needs to be had. More importantly, it is a conversation that students need to feel like they can have.
When an institution exemplifies actions like Cornell’s, it is no wonder that only 45% of students who have been victims of sexual assault believed their school would take reports of sexual assault seriously, according to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN).
As a college campus, Pepperdine also holds a responsibility to its students to say something — an email of acknowledgement, a reminder of campus resources or an outline of reporting protocols would have been better than the silence the University has exhibited thus far.
The same way college campuses are responsible for having these conversations, student-run newspapers are responsible for, and have consistently shown, their duty in reporting on issues when they feel as though their campus leaders fall short. I, along with the other staff members at the Graphic, have been following The Sun’s reporting and commend their work.
As reporting on this case continues, remember that it was student journalists at the forefront of this reporting — college students like us at the Graphic, and like those of you reading this.
And as discussions surrounding sexual assault on college campuses increase, remember that there are resources and people around you. Bluelight Phones across campus can be used to call the Department of Public Safety (DPS), RAINN has a 24/7 hotline available at 800-656-4673 and the Santa Monica Rape Treatment Center is open 24/7, 15 miles from campus. DPS can also be reached at 310-506-4441.
If you feel unheard by the University or those around you, please come to the Graphic. We want to hear your story, and we want you to feel heard. Because to us, every story is a story worth telling.
This story was copy edited by Lila Rendel.
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Contact Amanda Monahan via email: amanda.monahan@pepperdine.edu or Instagram: @amandamonahanjournalism
