“Free Pussy Upstairs”: The Reality of Rape Culture & the Questions Cornell must answer
The Issue
“Free Pussy Upstairs”: The Horrifying Reality of Rape Culture — and the Questions Cornell Must Answer
To President Michael I. Kotlikoff and the leadership of Cornell University:
“Free pussy upstairs.”
According to a civil lawsuit filed against Cornell University and others in September 2026, those words were allegedly sent into a Cornell fraternity group chat while a 20-year-old woman says she was upstairs, incapacitated and being sexually assaulted.
At approximately 1:42 a.m., according to the complaint, one of the defendants allegedly sent the message referring to “free pussy” upstairs to a Snapchat group called “Chi Phi Actives”, described in the lawsuit as a group chat for members of Cornell’s Chi Phi chapter.
The complaint alleges that other fraternity members subsequently entered the room while the plaintiff attempted to hide her naked body beneath the covers.
Sit with that.
A woman alleges that while she was too incapacitated to consent, she was being spoken about in a group of men as though access to her body were something that could be offered around.
This is why we need to talk about rape culture.
Rape culture does not mean that every man commits sexual violence.
It describes the social conditions in which sexual entitlement can be normalised, women’s boundaries can be minimised, bystanders can fail to intervene and responsibility can become dispersed across a group until nobody feels responsible for stopping what is happening.
The allegations in this lawsuit raise exactly those questions.
What did other fraternity members know?
What did they witness?
How did they respond?
What culture allowed a message like that allegedly to be sent into a group of men in the first place?
And when Cornell investigated, did it examine only the alleged conduct of individual students — or did it fully interrogate the wider environment surrounding it?
Those questions demand answers.
The lawsuit names seven current and former Cornell students as defendants and accuses them of participating in the alleged drugging and sexual assault of the plaintiff at the Chi Phi fraternity house in October 2024. This petition does not name them.
These are allegations being litigated, not findings of guilt, and the defendants are entitled to due process.
The District Attorney declined to bring criminal charges, and at least one defendant, through his attorney, has publicly denied the allegations and says the defence holds evidence that contradicts the plaintiff's account.
But due process for accused students does not require silence about institutional responsibility.
And this petition is about something Cornell is unquestionably responsible for:
Cornell’s own response.
What happened after she reported it?
According to the lawsuit, after the incident was reported to Cornell University Police, the seven accused students were temporarily suspended.
The lawsuit further alleges that they were subsequently offered an opportunity to mitigate their conduct by submitting essays.
Cornell has confirmed that its investigation and adjudication have concluded and that the Chi Phi chapter remains barred from campus.
Cornell says federal privacy law prevents it from publicly disclosing individual disciplinary outcomes.
Reporting by CBS News, citing the plaintiff’s attorney, states that two of the seven accused students were expelled and that others received lesser sanctions, including suspensions, workshops or essays.
The Tompkins County District Attorney’s Office has said that it conducted a thorough review of the police investigation but concluded there was insufficient evidence to support criminal charges.
Those distinctions matter.
This petition is not asking Cornell to treat allegations as criminal convictions.
It is not asking Cornell to abandon due process.
It is not asking Cornell to disclose information it is legally prohibited from disclosing.
It is asking something different:
Who scrutinises Cornell when Cornell scrutinises itself?
A woman made allegations of sexual violence of extraordinary gravity.
She ultimately left the university.
And serious questions remain about the institutional response that followed.
That should make us angry.
Not because allegations automatically establish guilt.
Not because due process should disappear.
But because due process exists alongside another responsibility:
a university’s responsibility to protect its students and to be accountable for the systems it creates to do so.
We are calling on Cornell University to commission an independent external review of its institutional response to sexual violence, including its handling of the allegations raised by this case.
Cornell’s own data should alarm us
This cannot be understood only as a question about one case or one fraternity.
Cornell’s own data show why.
In Cornell’s 2025 Survey of Sexual Assault and Related Misconduct, 35% of undergraduate women who responded reported experiencing nonconsensual sexual contact during their Cornell career, compared with 23% in 2023.
That figure requires important context.
The survey was sent to a random sample of 6,000 undergraduate, graduate and professional students across Cornell campuses, and 926 participated — an overall participation rate of just 15%, compared with 36% in 2023.
Cornell has explicitly cautioned that the lower response rate limits interpretation of the results.
That limitation matters.
But the experiences reported by the women who did respond matter too.
And Cornell’s own Presidential Task Force on Campus Sexual Assault subsequently described sexual assault as a serious and persistent problem on university campuses and developed recommendations intended to address the social conditions that enable it.
The question therefore cannot simply be:
What happened to seven students?
We also need to ask:
What is happening in the environment around them?
Prevention matters too
Cornell already has sexual-violence prevention infrastructure.
That should be acknowledged.
But the existence of programmes cannot be the endpoint of accountability.
Cornell’s own task force has recommended expanding education and addressing the social and cultural conditions surrounding sexual violence.
And the allegations concerning the Chi Phi group chat make those questions particularly urgent.
If a message allegedly advertising sexual access to an incapacitated woman could be sent into a fraternity group chat, we need to know more than whether Cornell has a consent workshop.
We need to know:
What are students being taught about consent in practice?
What are men being taught about sexual ethics, entitlement and responsibility?
What happens when a man sees another man exploiting somebody who appears incapable of consent?
Are students taught that witnessing something creates a responsibility to act?
What education specifically addresses peer cultures in which degrading language about women can become normalised?
What prevention education is mandatory within fraternities and other organisations associated with social events and alcohol?
Does meaningful education continue after orientation?
And most importantly:
Is it working?
Having a programme is not the same thing as demonstrating that it prevents harm.
Cornell should be able to show whether its programmes reach the environments where risk exists, whether students actually participate, whether attitudes and behaviour change, and whether sexual violence decreases.
We therefore call on Cornell University to:
1. Commission an independent external review
The review should examine Cornell’s institutional response to the allegations raised in this case, including whether applicable policies and procedures were followed and whether Cornell’s systems adequately protected and supported students.
Its findings and recommendations should be published to the fullest extent legally permissible.
2. Publish clear principles governing sanctions for serious sexual misconduct
Students should be able to understand how disciplinary sanctions are determined following findings of responsibility, including the circumstances in which suspension or dismissal is considered appropriate.
Protecting individual student privacy does not prevent Cornell from explaining the principles governing its own disciplinary system.
3. Explain the role of essays, reflection papers and other educational sanctions
Cornell’s published disciplinary information shows that educational interventions such as reflection papers and directed study have formed part of responses to some sexual-misconduct cases.
Cornell should explain clearly when such measures are considered appropriate and what safeguards prevent educational exercises from becoming substitutes for proportionate accountability in serious cases.
4. Examine institutional decision-making and campus safety
The independent review should examine who makes disciplinary and safeguarding decisions, what relevant training those decision-makers receive and what policies inform those decisions.
It should examine when students accused of serious sexual violence may remain on or return to campus, how risk is assessed, what interim protections are available, and how the safety of reporting students and the wider community is considered.
Where serious institutional or individual failures are established, there should be meaningful consequences.
5. Examine fraternity culture and bystander responsibility
The allegations concerning the “Chi Phi Actives” group chat raise questions extending beyond the seven men named as defendants.
An independent review should examine whether Cornell adequately considered the wider fraternity environment surrounding the alleged incident, including what other members may have known or witnessed, expectations around intervention and reporting, and whether Cornell’s systems adequately address group cultures in which sexual misconduct may occur.
This is not about assigning guilt to people who have not been found responsible.
It is about asking whether an institution tasked with preventing sexual violence examines the social environment in which it occurs, rather than merely individuals after the fact.
6. Increase transparency about disciplinary outcomes
Cornell should publish as much anonymised information as legally permissible about findings and sanctions in sexual-misconduct cases so its community can evaluate whether the University’s stated principles are reflected in practice.
Transparency does not require naming individual students.
It requires allowing the community to understand how the system works.
7. Strengthen and independently evaluate sexual-violence prevention
Cornell should clearly publish:
what sexual-violence prevention, consent and healthy-relationship education is mandatory for undergraduate students;
how meaningful prevention education continues beyond orientation;
what additional requirements apply within fraternities and other student organisations associated with social events;
what education specifically engages men around consent, sexual ethics, masculinity, bystander responsibility and preventing sexual violence;
how students are taught to respond when they witness behaviour that may place another student at risk;
how participation and completion are monitored; and
what evidence Cornell uses to determine whether its programmes actually change behaviour and reduce sexual violence.
Cornell should also commit to implementing and independently evaluating the recommendations of its 2026 Presidential Task Force on Campus Sexual Assault, with measurable progress and outcomes reported publicly.
Responding properly after sexual violence occurs matters.
Preventing it from occurring in the first place matters just as much.
This is not a demand to abandon due process
None of these demands requires Cornell to identify individual students, breach legally protected privacy or abandon fair procedures.
But privacy cannot mean the absence of institutional accountability.
Universities have enormous power over the environments in which young people live, study, drink, socialise and have relationships.
Students are told to report sexual violence.
They are told to trust the process.
They are told that universities take these reports seriously.
So:
Show us.
Show students how risk is assessed.
Show them what happens after a report is made.
Show them how disciplinary decisions are reached.
Show them what training the people making those decisions receive.
Show them why educational sanctions are used and where their limits lie.
Show them what Cornell is doing about the environments in which sexual violence occurs.
Show them how men are being engaged in preventing it.
Show them how bystanders are being prepared to intervene.
And show them the evidence that these interventions are working.
Then allow an independent body to examine whether those systems worked here.
Privacy cannot mean secrecy about systems.
Due process cannot mean freedom from institutional scrutiny.
Having prevention programmes cannot be confused with proving that prevention is working.
Education cannot become a euphemism for inadequate accountability.
And this is where the rest of us come in.
If you are a Cornell student: ask what is being done in your name.
If you are a Cornell alumnus: ask what kind of institution your degree represents.
If you are a parent: ask what systems are protecting the young people you entrust to this university.
If you are faculty or staff: ask whether the institution around you is living up to the standards it professes.
If you are a donor: ask what accountability your money is supporting.
And if you have no connection to Cornell at all but believe universities must be accountable for how they prevent and respond to sexual violence:
Sign this petition.
Share it.
Send it to Cornell alumni.
Send it to parents.
Send it to students.
Send it to the people whose names appear on university buildings and whose donations help keep institutions running.
Because outrage alone disappears.
Organised pressure doesn’t have to.
Students deserve systems worthy of their trust.
People who report sexual violence deserve institutions willing to examine themselves.
And when institutional systems fail, institutions must be willing to face consequences too.
ACCOUNTABILITY CANNOT BE AN ESSAY.
523
The Issue
“Free Pussy Upstairs”: The Horrifying Reality of Rape Culture — and the Questions Cornell Must Answer
To President Michael I. Kotlikoff and the leadership of Cornell University:
“Free pussy upstairs.”
According to a civil lawsuit filed against Cornell University and others in September 2026, those words were allegedly sent into a Cornell fraternity group chat while a 20-year-old woman says she was upstairs, incapacitated and being sexually assaulted.
At approximately 1:42 a.m., according to the complaint, one of the defendants allegedly sent the message referring to “free pussy” upstairs to a Snapchat group called “Chi Phi Actives”, described in the lawsuit as a group chat for members of Cornell’s Chi Phi chapter.
The complaint alleges that other fraternity members subsequently entered the room while the plaintiff attempted to hide her naked body beneath the covers.
Sit with that.
A woman alleges that while she was too incapacitated to consent, she was being spoken about in a group of men as though access to her body were something that could be offered around.
This is why we need to talk about rape culture.
Rape culture does not mean that every man commits sexual violence.
It describes the social conditions in which sexual entitlement can be normalised, women’s boundaries can be minimised, bystanders can fail to intervene and responsibility can become dispersed across a group until nobody feels responsible for stopping what is happening.
The allegations in this lawsuit raise exactly those questions.
What did other fraternity members know?
What did they witness?
How did they respond?
What culture allowed a message like that allegedly to be sent into a group of men in the first place?
And when Cornell investigated, did it examine only the alleged conduct of individual students — or did it fully interrogate the wider environment surrounding it?
Those questions demand answers.
The lawsuit names seven current and former Cornell students as defendants and accuses them of participating in the alleged drugging and sexual assault of the plaintiff at the Chi Phi fraternity house in October 2024. This petition does not name them.
These are allegations being litigated, not findings of guilt, and the defendants are entitled to due process.
The District Attorney declined to bring criminal charges, and at least one defendant, through his attorney, has publicly denied the allegations and says the defence holds evidence that contradicts the plaintiff's account.
But due process for accused students does not require silence about institutional responsibility.
And this petition is about something Cornell is unquestionably responsible for:
Cornell’s own response.
What happened after she reported it?
According to the lawsuit, after the incident was reported to Cornell University Police, the seven accused students were temporarily suspended.
The lawsuit further alleges that they were subsequently offered an opportunity to mitigate their conduct by submitting essays.
Cornell has confirmed that its investigation and adjudication have concluded and that the Chi Phi chapter remains barred from campus.
Cornell says federal privacy law prevents it from publicly disclosing individual disciplinary outcomes.
Reporting by CBS News, citing the plaintiff’s attorney, states that two of the seven accused students were expelled and that others received lesser sanctions, including suspensions, workshops or essays.
The Tompkins County District Attorney’s Office has said that it conducted a thorough review of the police investigation but concluded there was insufficient evidence to support criminal charges.
Those distinctions matter.
This petition is not asking Cornell to treat allegations as criminal convictions.
It is not asking Cornell to abandon due process.
It is not asking Cornell to disclose information it is legally prohibited from disclosing.
It is asking something different:
Who scrutinises Cornell when Cornell scrutinises itself?
A woman made allegations of sexual violence of extraordinary gravity.
She ultimately left the university.
And serious questions remain about the institutional response that followed.
That should make us angry.
Not because allegations automatically establish guilt.
Not because due process should disappear.
But because due process exists alongside another responsibility:
a university’s responsibility to protect its students and to be accountable for the systems it creates to do so.
We are calling on Cornell University to commission an independent external review of its institutional response to sexual violence, including its handling of the allegations raised by this case.
Cornell’s own data should alarm us
This cannot be understood only as a question about one case or one fraternity.
Cornell’s own data show why.
In Cornell’s 2025 Survey of Sexual Assault and Related Misconduct, 35% of undergraduate women who responded reported experiencing nonconsensual sexual contact during their Cornell career, compared with 23% in 2023.
That figure requires important context.
The survey was sent to a random sample of 6,000 undergraduate, graduate and professional students across Cornell campuses, and 926 participated — an overall participation rate of just 15%, compared with 36% in 2023.
Cornell has explicitly cautioned that the lower response rate limits interpretation of the results.
That limitation matters.
But the experiences reported by the women who did respond matter too.
And Cornell’s own Presidential Task Force on Campus Sexual Assault subsequently described sexual assault as a serious and persistent problem on university campuses and developed recommendations intended to address the social conditions that enable it.
The question therefore cannot simply be:
What happened to seven students?
We also need to ask:
What is happening in the environment around them?
Prevention matters too
Cornell already has sexual-violence prevention infrastructure.
That should be acknowledged.
But the existence of programmes cannot be the endpoint of accountability.
Cornell’s own task force has recommended expanding education and addressing the social and cultural conditions surrounding sexual violence.
And the allegations concerning the Chi Phi group chat make those questions particularly urgent.
If a message allegedly advertising sexual access to an incapacitated woman could be sent into a fraternity group chat, we need to know more than whether Cornell has a consent workshop.
We need to know:
What are students being taught about consent in practice?
What are men being taught about sexual ethics, entitlement and responsibility?
What happens when a man sees another man exploiting somebody who appears incapable of consent?
Are students taught that witnessing something creates a responsibility to act?
What education specifically addresses peer cultures in which degrading language about women can become normalised?
What prevention education is mandatory within fraternities and other organisations associated with social events and alcohol?
Does meaningful education continue after orientation?
And most importantly:
Is it working?
Having a programme is not the same thing as demonstrating that it prevents harm.
Cornell should be able to show whether its programmes reach the environments where risk exists, whether students actually participate, whether attitudes and behaviour change, and whether sexual violence decreases.
We therefore call on Cornell University to:
1. Commission an independent external review
The review should examine Cornell’s institutional response to the allegations raised in this case, including whether applicable policies and procedures were followed and whether Cornell’s systems adequately protected and supported students.
Its findings and recommendations should be published to the fullest extent legally permissible.
2. Publish clear principles governing sanctions for serious sexual misconduct
Students should be able to understand how disciplinary sanctions are determined following findings of responsibility, including the circumstances in which suspension or dismissal is considered appropriate.
Protecting individual student privacy does not prevent Cornell from explaining the principles governing its own disciplinary system.
3. Explain the role of essays, reflection papers and other educational sanctions
Cornell’s published disciplinary information shows that educational interventions such as reflection papers and directed study have formed part of responses to some sexual-misconduct cases.
Cornell should explain clearly when such measures are considered appropriate and what safeguards prevent educational exercises from becoming substitutes for proportionate accountability in serious cases.
4. Examine institutional decision-making and campus safety
The independent review should examine who makes disciplinary and safeguarding decisions, what relevant training those decision-makers receive and what policies inform those decisions.
It should examine when students accused of serious sexual violence may remain on or return to campus, how risk is assessed, what interim protections are available, and how the safety of reporting students and the wider community is considered.
Where serious institutional or individual failures are established, there should be meaningful consequences.
5. Examine fraternity culture and bystander responsibility
The allegations concerning the “Chi Phi Actives” group chat raise questions extending beyond the seven men named as defendants.
An independent review should examine whether Cornell adequately considered the wider fraternity environment surrounding the alleged incident, including what other members may have known or witnessed, expectations around intervention and reporting, and whether Cornell’s systems adequately address group cultures in which sexual misconduct may occur.
This is not about assigning guilt to people who have not been found responsible.
It is about asking whether an institution tasked with preventing sexual violence examines the social environment in which it occurs, rather than merely individuals after the fact.
6. Increase transparency about disciplinary outcomes
Cornell should publish as much anonymised information as legally permissible about findings and sanctions in sexual-misconduct cases so its community can evaluate whether the University’s stated principles are reflected in practice.
Transparency does not require naming individual students.
It requires allowing the community to understand how the system works.
7. Strengthen and independently evaluate sexual-violence prevention
Cornell should clearly publish:
what sexual-violence prevention, consent and healthy-relationship education is mandatory for undergraduate students;
how meaningful prevention education continues beyond orientation;
what additional requirements apply within fraternities and other student organisations associated with social events;
what education specifically engages men around consent, sexual ethics, masculinity, bystander responsibility and preventing sexual violence;
how students are taught to respond when they witness behaviour that may place another student at risk;
how participation and completion are monitored; and
what evidence Cornell uses to determine whether its programmes actually change behaviour and reduce sexual violence.
Cornell should also commit to implementing and independently evaluating the recommendations of its 2026 Presidential Task Force on Campus Sexual Assault, with measurable progress and outcomes reported publicly.
Responding properly after sexual violence occurs matters.
Preventing it from occurring in the first place matters just as much.
This is not a demand to abandon due process
None of these demands requires Cornell to identify individual students, breach legally protected privacy or abandon fair procedures.
But privacy cannot mean the absence of institutional accountability.
Universities have enormous power over the environments in which young people live, study, drink, socialise and have relationships.
Students are told to report sexual violence.
They are told to trust the process.
They are told that universities take these reports seriously.
So:
Show us.
Show students how risk is assessed.
Show them what happens after a report is made.
Show them how disciplinary decisions are reached.
Show them what training the people making those decisions receive.
Show them why educational sanctions are used and where their limits lie.
Show them what Cornell is doing about the environments in which sexual violence occurs.
Show them how men are being engaged in preventing it.
Show them how bystanders are being prepared to intervene.
And show them the evidence that these interventions are working.
Then allow an independent body to examine whether those systems worked here.
Privacy cannot mean secrecy about systems.
Due process cannot mean freedom from institutional scrutiny.
Having prevention programmes cannot be confused with proving that prevention is working.
Education cannot become a euphemism for inadequate accountability.
And this is where the rest of us come in.
If you are a Cornell student: ask what is being done in your name.
If you are a Cornell alumnus: ask what kind of institution your degree represents.
If you are a parent: ask what systems are protecting the young people you entrust to this university.
If you are faculty or staff: ask whether the institution around you is living up to the standards it professes.
If you are a donor: ask what accountability your money is supporting.
And if you have no connection to Cornell at all but believe universities must be accountable for how they prevent and respond to sexual violence:
Sign this petition.
Share it.
Send it to Cornell alumni.
Send it to parents.
Send it to students.
Send it to the people whose names appear on university buildings and whose donations help keep institutions running.
Because outrage alone disappears.
Organised pressure doesn’t have to.
Students deserve systems worthy of their trust.
People who report sexual violence deserve institutions willing to examine themselves.
And when institutional systems fail, institutions must be willing to face consequences too.
ACCOUNTABILITY CANNOT BE AN ESSAY.
The Decision Makers
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Petition created on 25 September 2026