Over the last week, Cornell’s Title IX board’s failure of Jane Doe has been scrutinized, but is the issue deeper than just Cornell and the Ivies?

By Boone Kilpatrick

Over the past month, the country has looked on in shocked horror at the events taking place at Cornell. The story of a girl being sexually assaulted at Cornell’s Chi Phi fraternity has gripped the nation and sparked outraged calls for justice and societal reform.

But the sad truth, is that anectdotally, most college students have lived or heard stories like this. If it hasn’t happened to us, we know someone, or know someone who knows someone.

The story of a title IX investigation into a sexual assault that leaves the plaintiff feeling frustrated at best, and traumatized at worst is omnipresent on college campuses, and has been long before Cornell.

This is more than just hearsay, America has had plenty of warning shots before Cornell, at Harvard, Princeton, USC, Clemson, Penn State, Auburn, Oregon, West Virginia, Swarthmore Columbia, NYU, Syracuse.

North, South, East, West, red states, blue states, big schools, little schools, prestigous schools, state schools. The problem has shown up everywhere you look. Victims frustrated over inaction or downright inaction in the face of horrifying allegations.

Sexual assault investigations are delicate and often shrouded affairs, convinctions are difficult to attain, particularly in the Cornell case. The reforms demanded in that legal process are a quagmire that activists have waded through since before womens suffrage.

But if they are so difficult, why are colleges taking it upon themselves to delagate them, rather than leaving it to the police? Especially when title IX offices across the country are mired with claims of incompetence.

If a juror was found to work for the company where an allegation took place, they would be thrown out. Cornell may bring a reckoning for nternal handling of such dire allegations, and perhaps it should.