Content warning: Explicit mentions of sexual assault and violence.
To the Butler community,
What did we do at Butler?
In the wake of a deluge of media coverage regarding seven Cornell Chi Phi fraternity members accused of drugging and raping an incapacitated woman, the perennial and pervasive issue of sexual violence on college campuses has returned to the fore of public consciousness. While the Cornell case is particularly egregious, both in the acts committed and in the lack of accountability on the part of the university, it is not anomalous. According to one metric from the National Sexual Violence Research Center, one in five women and one in 16 men are sexually assaulted while in college in the United States.
The Butler Collegian recently published an opinion article asking the question “What would we do at Butler?” It is a sensible question, given that sexual violence and inadequate consequences for its perpetrators are endemic to our institutions of higher education. What would we do if one of our friends sexually assaulted someone? What would we do if Jane Doe were one of our friends? What would we do if we were Jane Doe? What would we do if we were Cornell?
The question “What would we do?” looks toward possibility, and does so wisely. In this question, there is an implicit understanding that Cornell is not aberrant. It could happen there; it could happen here. But the potential future is necessarily informed by the past and present. So, perhaps we should also ask the question, “What did we do at Butler?”
What did we do at Butler University in 2014 when a student spoke about her sexual assault and accused the university of covering it up? What did we do at Butler University in 2017 when the IndyStar broke the news of the egregious mishandling of a student’s rape at a Lambda Chi Alpha party? What did we do at Butler University in 2023 when women’s soccer players accused a Butler Athletics employee of serially sexually assaulting them and others for years? What did we do at Butler University in 2025 when survivors spoke out about neglect and incompetence on the part of the Title IX office in handling cases of campus sexual assault?
As an editor for The Butler Collegian, I spent three years at Butler seeking to answer these questions. The answers I found revealed a grim picture of institutional cover-ups, impunity for perpetrators and countless instances of sexual harassment, stalking, threats and assault. I spoke to numerous students and alumni about the epidemic of sexual violence at Butler University, and the ways that the university silenced and punished survivors of sexual violence.
What concerned me most at that time was how the safeguards that were supposed to protect students, like the Title IX office and the Butler University Police Department, invariably failed those most vulnerable. I saw how the institution could use those very safeguards to protect itself, not its students. I saw how it created a culture of silence, of injustice, of hopelessness.
I still hold those concerns. However, at the time, I did not have the foresight nor the perspective to see clearly the most insidious component of this cover-up culture: institutional amnesia.
Every year one class of students leaves, and a new one arrives. Every four years there is an entirely new generation of students, only vaguely familiar with what came before them. The memory of the trauma of past generations fades with each that follows, in part because of regular student turnover, in part because retribution by the university, or the threat thereof, silences the victims of said trauma. This amnesia and the university’s propensity toward suppressing victims perpetuate one another, and in turn, support a broader rape-culture movement that allows for sexual violence to go unpunished.
So what did we do at Butler? We forgot. We forgot the victims of sexual violence from prior generations. We forgot how the university silenced and isolated those very victims. And we forgot because that is exactly what the institution wanted us to do. The scars of what happened fade with time as students pass through the university. But as our history shows us, sexual violence happens again and reopens those old wounds just as if they were new.
Facing the inevitability of regular student turnover and the institutional pressures which exacerbate the memory loss from this turnover, another question arises: “What could we do at Butler?”
It is incumbent upon the student body to know their history and to understand the roots of the injustices committed against their friends and peers, and those committed against the generations that came before. It is impossible to overstate the power of that collective consciousness. For decades, student activist movements in the United States have driven social change domestically and globally.
In the 1960s, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was integral to passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In the 1980s, student activism at the University of California, Berkeley led the movement for university divestment from the South African apartheid state. Most recently, in 2024, student encampments on college campuses in support of Palestine have brought to light the deep entrenchment of universities in weapons manufacturing and the dire state of free speech on college campuses. These movements persist in our memory as inspirations for social change globally and show us what strong student activism can do.
Confronted with the horrific actions of the members of Cornell’s Chi Phi fraternity chapter and the abysmal response by the university, now is the time to consider where we can go from here. Will you allow the cycle of abuse and cover-up to continue on your campus? Or will you fight for change for the generations to come?
I urge you not to forget what Butler did. All the same, I invite you to dream of what Butler could do.
Aidan Gregg ‘25
Opinion Editor 2022-2023
Managing Editor 2023-2025