Ending Campus Misogyny: Student Safety Over Brand Protection

We stand with the Cornell AAUP chapter and share their outrage of the continued culture of misogyny and pervasiveness of violence against women at Cornell and at universities and colleges across the country. We condemn the Cornell University police department's mishandling of evidence and the university administration's unwillingness to hold Chi Phi fraternity sufficiently accountable for the alleged rapes.

The AAUP represents faculty and academic staff at universities and colleges across the country. We create space in our classrooms and labs to teach, debate, research, think, discover, and create with our students. For years, we have watched the role of university administrators shift from one that supports and develops these activities to one that protects the economic interests of trustees and wealthy donors who sit on university boards. A college or university's brand reputation should not trump its students' safety. Together with Cornell AAUP, we stand in solidarity with survivors of sexual violence, with student organizations and journalists who have been demanding better, and with faculty, staff, and students at Cornell who have been organizing to demand change.