In 1987, a Syracuse University student was attacked with a knife inside a bathroom on campus. Nearly forty years later, she is suing the university under New York's Adult Survivors Act (a law that lets survivors of old assaults sue in a limited window), arguing the school should have done more to protect students given how many other attacks were happening nearby. A Syracuse University vice president says the school is "committed to supporting the students who come forward and being there for them at every step of the process," according to a school statement.

But when the survivor's lawyers subpoenaed old Syracuse Police Department records to help prove her case, university lawyers stepped in to stop it. They called her request "overbroad" and said it suffered from "fatal geographic overreach," according to court filings. A judge agreed, ruling she can only obtain records tied to crimes on university property, not the surrounding neighborhood, where more than a dozen other women reported being raped or attacked near campus during the 1980s. Her legal team has appealed.

A university that says it stands behind survivors "at every step" should not be spending its legal budget trying to keep a survivor from the evidence she needs to prove her case in court. Public safety records tied to decades-old police reports belong in the light, not locked behind a fight over paperwork.

Sign the petition to demand Syracuse University drop its effort to block these records and let this survivor pursue her case with full access to the evidence.