On Sept. 16, 2026, a former Cornell University student going by the alias Jane Doe filed a civil lawsuit against the educational institution, Chi Phi Fraternity and seven former fraternity members. Doe alleges that she was drugged and gang-raped at the fraternity house after walking back from a previous party on Oct. 19, 2024.

The Chi Phi fraternity was hosting a party that same night, where a fraternity member and friend of Doe had proposed a threesome with him and another Frat brother. Already inebriated, Doe was allegedly given a pile of drugs such as ketamine and marijuana. What was originally supposed to be an event of three people turned into Doe and eight to 10 men, according to CNN. An additional detail was added to this lawsuit where Snapchat messages were retrieved from a group chat titled “Chi Phi Actives” with over 57 members. In this group chat, one of the members messaged that “free p*ssy” was upstairs, with another member asking if “shop was still open”.

Details of this story are still developing, leading to discourse on social media and college campuses. This has raised growing concerns about campus safety for students nationwide, sparking protests and community responses from faculty as well. Not only have Cornell students participated in sit-ins and walkouts, but CSUN is also participating in sexual violence awareness.

In relation to this current event, gender women studies professor Marie Cartier performed a poem of her own titled, “Rape is robbery and we want all of our stuff back,” on October 6th during a mixer for the gender women studies department to encourage students to join the program.

Cartier deemed the reflective essays given to the five students as “F***king Bull***,” followed by, “I don’t know who’s grading that sh*t, but I can tell you one thing. There is no rubric that I know of [on how] to grade a paper that begins with ‘I participated in a gang rape.’” The form of punishment the seven accused received was suspension of two of the students; one was barred from campus for three years and reflection essays for the rest. Doe eventually dropped out of college after being denied a refund of her tuition from Cornell University.

Jose Garcia, a current student at CSUN, decided to speak up about the Cornell 7 during a gender women’s studies class, informing his peers of the Snapchat messages exchanged between the Chi Phi members.

“They need to be punished more so they actually realize what they did ‘cause it seems like the little punishment they got is going to [allow] them to go out again into the world and do it again,” Garcia said.

After all of this, Garcia expressed deep concern for women’s safety, especially those applying for college and Greek life. Garcia feels that the institution is more concerned with their reputation rather than the safety of its students.

“The university is not dealing with this because they don’t want the publicity; definitely could be because they’re afraid of their endowments because some of the kids are wealthy, who knows,” said Cartier. “But I think the really big thing is that…there’s a bro code.”

Cartier touched on the normalization of rape culture in response to how all 57 participants in “Chi Phi actives” failed to contact authorities before, during and after the seven-hour assault. This suggests that the group has established some form of loyalty between each other or a “bro-code.”

Marie Cartier read a line from “Rape is robbery and we want all of our stuff back,”: “If someone steals your right to sleep with the lights off, then you were robbed. If you are afraid of the dark now, and you weren’t before, you were robbed. If someone steals your right to have sex because every time your legs part, you see the rapist and you freeze, you were robbed. If someone steals your right to go out at night because it happened at night, in the morning, because it happened in the morning, at a bar because it happened in a bar…. You get the idea. You were robbed.”

The CSUN Klotz Health Center offers students and faculty resources, confidential support, medical support and a 24/7 hotline for those affected by sexual assault. For further information, please see the Student Resources and Reporting Options for Sexual Violence and Relationship Abuse pamphlet.

View below for more stories regarding sexual violence awareness on CSUN’s campus.