Two weeks ago, a former Cornell University student filed a lawsuit in New York alleging that seven male students gang raped her at a fraternity house in 2024. The woman, identified only as Jane Doe, said the Chi Phi fraternity members assaulted her for hours after pressuring her into snorting ketamine, smoking marijuana and drinking high-proof liquor. She is suing the school, the fraternity and the seven men she claims assaulted her, among others.
For Vineyarder and Cornell junior Olympia Hall, the alleged rape has dominated nearly every conversation of the past several weeks. As co-president of Cornell’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Safety Club, Ms. Hall spends much of her time working to dismantle a campus culture that permits and enables assaults like the one Ms. Doe allegedly endured two years ago.
“It’s overwhelming,” Ms. Hall told the Gazette this week by phone. “I mean, this is my school. This is my community. I think this has hit this campus hard, and … people are definitely outraged. They’re upset.”
Ms. Hall graduated from Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School in 2024, and has been a member of Cornell’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Safety Club since her first year of college. She became aware of it through her older sorority sisters in Kappa Alpha Theta, one of whom brought her to her first meeting.
“It was so powerful,” Ms. Hall recalled. “It felt like I was part of a really amazing community.”
She quickly rose up through the club’s leadership ranks. She joined the executive board last year and helped bring renowned writer and sexual assault awareness advocate Chanel Miller to speak on Cornell’s campus. She became co-president of the club this fall, just as Ms. Doe’s lawsuit cracked open a conversation that had largely lay dormant on campus for two years.
“A lot of students had conversations, but only until recently, when the recent lawsuit came out, did people start talking about it again,” she said.
After Ms. Doe first reported being assaulted in 2024, Cornell notified the student body and reportedly expelled some of the accused students, suspended others and banned Chi Phi from continuing to operate on campus. According to Ms. Doe’s complaint, the university gave the accused the opportunity to write essays to Cornell as part of the disciplinary process, a claim Cornell denies.
Now, Ms. Hall said students’ horror is mixed with uncertainty about what Cornell’s administration is going to do next and what the campus is going to feel like moving forward. She said a lot of students are dissatisfied with the way Cornell has handled Ms. Doe’s case.
Meanwhile, the wave of national attention is taking its toll on students. Reporters are posted all over the quad, and the coffee shops that surround campus are full of students sitting down with journalists. This week, Ms. Hall was interviewed by NPR for Tuesday’s Morning Edition and the New York Times.
Though the world’s eyes are on Cornell, Ms. Hall said it’s important to remember that the problem of sexual assault stretches far beyond any one campus.
“I think that the sad truth of the matter is that sexual assault is a prevalent cultural problem across the United States,” she said. “We’re in the hot seat right now, but a lot of colleges and universities have had major sexual assault incidents.”
Ms. Hall pointed to party culture and Greek life as places where rape culture can fester, aided by copious amounts of drugs and alcohol. She’s optimistic, however, that things could someday be different.
She and the other members of her club are working on a new sexual assault awareness curriculum and educational program for all students involved in Greek life at Cornell. The group has been working with the school’s administration to develop the program since the spring.
“Education is not the only solution … but I’m hoping that education can be a forward momentum to help change the culture here,” she said.
She contrasted the group’s vision with typical sexual assault and harassment trainings, which she said often don’t invite engagement beyond watching a video or completing a questionnaire.
“If you’re not actively involved in the conversation, then you’re likely not going to take much away from it,” she said.
Ms. Hall and her club are also pushing for active involvement in other ways. On Tuesday, the group made a point of inviting all of Cornell’s fraternities and sororities to its bi-weekly meeting to discuss the alleged assault at Chi Phi.
“We got a lot of new people there, and I think it went really well,” she said.
She added that on Monday, the Cornell student body will hold a school-wide protest in response to the alleged assault. The Sexual Assault Prevention and Safety Club will table nearby, handing out purple ribbons for sexual assault awareness.
“Things are happening around campus now,” Ms. Hall said. “I’m hopeful for change.”
This article appears in October 2 2026.