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The Silence of Academia: Sexual Violence, Institutional Negligence, and the Fight to Be Heard

Danae Vrahimi
Oct 31
7 min read

Essay on SA: a personal piece, supported by empirical evidence, which attempts to showcase the complete disregard academia has for the safety of its female student body. Do not let this stay the norm.

WHAT IS S.A.?

S.A. is an overused abbreviation of sexual assault. In the rise of social media coverage of true crime and headlining news, subjects which are deemed inappropriate or ‘too heavy’ for the algorithm are cut into more ‘friendly’ abbreviations. However, I think it is about time we use big words to talk about big issues. 

According to the Glossary of definitions of rape, femicide and intimate partner violence from the European Institute for Gender Equality, rape is defined as: “Any non-consensual vaginal, anal or oral penetration of the body of another person where the penetration is of a sexual nature, with any bodily part or with an object, as well as any other non-consensual acts of a sexual nature by the use of coercion, violence, threats, duress, ruse, surprise or other means, regardless of the perpetrator’s relationship to the victim. Causing another person to engage in non-consensual acts of a sexual nature with a third person is also considered as rape.” (Manjoo, n.d.) 

According to this writer however, rape cannot be classified as something so… clinical. While this definition aims and succeeds in allowing no loopholes to be made or perpetrators to slip past its gnawing jaw, it does not convey the mere dehumanization involved in the act itself. One who is lucky enough to remain unscathed by the pollution of rape cannot comprehend the mark it brands on one’s heart — on one’s body. It alters your life, in some form or way; in the small changes you’ve done to your daily routine or to the much larger alteration in your life. And yet in regard to a traumatic event this significant — one which our literal brain classifies as high of a threat as attempted murder — our Justice System and the people who swore to protect us continue to do nothing. Absolutely nothing. 


CORNELL 7

Editor’s note: Due to the case’s recent upheaval of public traction, it is important and significant to remind the readers that no individuals have — by the time of writing — been charged with any crime for the case of Jane Doe. In the eyes of the law the men accused are innocent until proven guilty.


The recent case of Jane Doe and the Cornell 7 has rightfully excited fellow exhausted women’s fury once again. An essay for rape? Really?! Is that all Cornell — one of the most prestigious universities in the US — could muster as a punishment to a literal crime?! A woman’s inalienable human right to consent and her bodily autonomy was ripped away from her for seven consecutive hours and her assailants only had to write essays. Really. For them, one afternoon in the library and the problem goes away but for Jane Doe? She is not permitted the luxury of forgetting about it. 

Cornell University has failed Jane Doe; but then again what is new in that? Constant, never-ending and tragically predictable disappointments will forever be ignited from American Universities and colleges, even in the Ivy League schools (especially in the Ivy League schools). Unfortunately, Jane Doe was not the first. And she won’t be the last. 


CARRY THAT WEIGHT


In 2016, Emma Sulkowicz was raped during her first day as a sophomore at Columbia University. However, once her rape was reported to the school board, her case was dismissed and her rapist was allowed to attend the university. In an act of protest, Sulkowicz subsequently carried the very 30-pound mattress she was raped on around campus, in all her lectures and even at her graduation. The young artist transformed her pain and injustice into a piece of art, enacting her form of protest for her thesis Carry that weight.

While Sulkowicz was able to move on from her assault and cultivate a life for her own, her assailant would not rest. In 2017, Nungesser filed a lawsuit against Columbia University, claiming that, under Title IX, the university had failed to protect him from gender-based discrimination. Title IX is a federal civil law which prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other education program that receives funding from the federal government. When a rape incident is reported to university police, Title IX is the law which classifies that violation as a crime. 

However, while the regulation is set in place to protect its student body, it more often than not is manipulated or abused into protecting the university’s own self-interest and/or reputation. Columbia University, in fear of a further scandal, settled with Nungesser and released a public statement which shamefully agreed with the student's accusation, promising to uphold its regulations more strictly from then on. Columbia University failed Emma, yet when the opportunity rose, it did not hesitate to protect Nungesser.


IMPOTENCE OR PLAIN NEGLIGENCE?


Due to Cornell's willful disregard and negligence against its own student body, a question rose in my mind. It never stopped itching in the very back of my brain. Why? As a European citizen, I keep hearing about the universities in the US and their constant unwavering stagnancy on rape incidents involving their own students and yet I cannot answer this simple question: Why? Why are they so ignorant? Is it deliberate or a simple consequence of their inability to act? Upon researching, I came across the Clery Act and everything made sense.

The Clery Act is a protection law in the US which requires colleges and universities participating in federal student financial aid programs to maintain and disclose records of campus crime and safety policies. 

So, when I ask myself why again, the answer is quite simple. Under the Clery Act, Ivy League schools cannot hide behind their reputations; the statistics speak for themselves. However, if a headmaster or a councilor manages to manipulate and dissuade female students from even reporting such crimes — yes that would manifest into an incredibly oppressive and unsafe academic environment — but tension is not depicted in statistics; is it? Through their disregard of actually reported cases of sexual violence, the heads of the academic hierarchy ensure the hesitancy of future victims to report to them in the event of those crimes. No reports? No rape stats. No accusations? No need for donors to worry. No rapists in the Greek houses? No need for anxious parents to send their precious money anywhere else. 

By this point in time, one who is educated in the theory of Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault, has to observe the parallels. While Foucault’s theory was constructed around the transformation of public punishment to private prison systems, his theory can be applicable to any social institution. “He introduces the concept of panopticism, illustrating how surveillance and normalization operate within social institutions like prisons and schools, ultimately fostering conformity.” (Martin, 2022) 

Through the Foucault theory, we can see how the implicit social reward which is granted on the accused — as seen above with the case of Emma (the school taking the side of her rapist in the lawsuit) can have direct impacts on the student body. The university’s public statement not only conveys that Nungresser was indeed a victim of Sulkowicz’s protests, it also portrays Emma’s unwavering defiance to be silenced as something oppressive and destructive, worthy of public scrutiny and discipline.

"It [discipline] divides individuals into categories and ranks based upon their adherence to the rules; thus, normalcy becomes the desired state of being. The examination is the means by which the observing hierarchy can judge, quantify, classify, reward, and punish. The examining machine is manifested in the hospital and the school, where the individual becomes documented, fixed, and analyzed. For Foucault, the forcing of normalcy upon the individual is an oppressive evil of modern society that silences the voice of those outside the norm” (Martin, 2022).

Hence, the school’s stagnancy in Sulkowicz’s case implies that speaking out in the event of sexual violence is not only meaningless and inconsequential but also may result in further public scrutiny or ostracization. Therefore, it promotes conformity, it promotes the social hierarchies within the academic world with the accused at the top and accusers at the very bottom. It spits in the face of past and future victims and urges them to be quiet.


BE LOUD

Time and time again prestigious Ivy League schools have shown that unless you are a rich, white, heterosexual, cis man you don’t deserve safety, you don’t deserve a support system, and you certainly do not deserve autonomy. Cornell failed Jane Doe and numerous other victims when they were in a time of need. Columbia failed Emma Sulkowicz and all the others that came before her and will come long after this article is published. Academia has and is currently disregarding the safety and wellbeing of their female student body in an attempt to push us out of the field. Whether unconsciously or deliberately, academic spaces are suffocating their female counterparts, enforcing harmful societal gender expectations and normalizing constant abrasive and dehumanizing behavior against women. 

It may seem as if the academic world — or even the world in its whole — is pressing its boot onto our necks, slowly trying to eradicate our autonomy and our voice. Do not for one second let them think they won. Even with their hands around our throats, we must continue to scream. Never stop speaking about rape. Never stop shaming and pointing out disgusting male behavior because that is how it starts. One day your little brother or your male friend or even your father makes an off-hand crude comment you never heard the likes of before – not from him anyway. Then the comments increase, turn more grotesque, more perverse, more violent. Until finally, they stop viewing women as human all together. Until finally, they are given the opportunity to act. Or — even worse — they are given the opportunity to speak up; and they choose not to. 

Never let such inhumane behavior pass for the sake of social decorum. Cause a scene. Make people uncomfortable. Do not be afraid to be labelled dramatic. In a world which is constantly attempting to stifle us out: be dramatic, be opinionated, be loud.


References 

Manjoo, R. (n.d.). Glossary of definitions of rape, femicide and intimate partner violence. European Institute for Gender Equality. Retrieved October 20, 2026, from 

Martin, L. R. (2022). Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/literature-and-writing/discipline-an d-punish-michel-foucault/


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