Our letter to Cornell and What the Dreaming Together Report Offers

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The letter shares findings from Dreaming Together, a student-led study of California campus responses to sexual violence.

Content note: This post discusses sexual violence and campus reporting systems. Support resources are listed at the end.

1500 Public Affairs Building, Box 957222 Los Angeles, CA 90095-7222 www.csw.ucla.edu Dear President Michael Kotlikoff, I am writing as Director of the UCLA Center for the Study of Women|Barbra Streisand Center, home to Survivors + Allies, a student-led survivor advocacy and research initiative. We were deeply concerned to learn of the recent news from Cornell University and are glad to see the reopening of the criminal investigation into the 2024 assault at the Chi Phi fraternity house. Our thoughts are with the survivor and fellow survivors in the Cornell community. Our first responsibility in writing is not to offer outside prescriptions, but to underscore the students, survivors, and advocates on your own campus as the ones who know Cornell best. We understand that Cornell's Presidential Task Force on Campus Sexual Assault, led by Dean Rachel Dunifon and Dean Marla Love, has already done substantial work, including its March 2026 final report responding to the 2025 Cornell Survey on Sexual Assault and Related Misconduct. We believe such data-driven, student-informed efforts are a foundation to build on. We would encourage you to listen closely to survivors themselves as next steps are decided. Survivors + Allies’ research began in the space between what Title IX promises and what it requires of universities. Survivors + Allies built its own evidence base because those gaps left students’ experiences largely undocumented. I am writing to offer a resource that may be useful: Survivors + Allies’s 2026 report, Dreaming Together: California Student Survivors Reimagining Campus Responses to Sexual Violence. It draws on a survey of 1,649 students and 20 in-depth survivor interviews across California's UC, CSU, community college, and private institutions. While it studied California campuses, its findings echo concerns raised at institutions nationally, including Cornell's own survey data showing a rise in reported sexual assault among undergraduate women: ● Mandatory Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment (SVSH) trainings often fall short: students report that required training frequently fails to meaningfully address survivor needs or prevent harm. ● Marginalized students face heightened risk: students experiencing intersecting forms of marginalization, by race, gender identity, sexuality, and disability, are not adequately protected by current systems. ● The "Survivors' Calculus": the Survivors + Allies framework for the hidden labor survivors undertake to weigh whether seeking support is worth the emotional, academic, and social costs, before they ever reach an office door. ● Survivors overwhelmingly prefer confidential, survivor-centered care that prioritizes their autonomy over institutional liability. In the survey and interview data, survivors turned to peers and friends for support far more often than to any campus resource. ● Barriers to reporting are concrete and addressable: in our survey, the top reasons survivors did not report were not believing the incident was "serious enough," confidentiality concerns, and mistrust of campus resources. 1500 Public Affairs Building, Box 957222 Los Angeles, CA 90095-7222 www.csw.ucla.edu I would like to highlight the "Survivors' Calculus” framework because it shifts the diagnosis, reframing the question "why don't students use our resources?" to "what is the resource actually costing the student to access, and does that cost make sense given what they're likely to get back?" In S+A's data, the reasons survivors gave for not reporting were concrete and calculable in exactly this way: 49% said the incident "wasn't serious enough" to warrant it, 32% cited confidentiality concerns, and 18% cited mistrust of campus resources. Peer support networks were found to be the primary support channel; among survivors who reached out to anyone, almost half reported reaching out to a peer or friend for support, whether on or off campus. I would be glad to share the full report and to connect your task force or SHARE Office with our team, especially the student researchers who led this work, if that would be helpful. Our aim is simply to be a resource, not to speak over the students and survivors closest to what is happening at Cornell right now. Respectfully, Jessica Cattelino Director, Center for the Study of Women | Barbra Streisand Center University of California, Los Angeles

After consulting with student advocacy researchers, UCLA Center for the Study of Women|Barbra Streisand Center sent a letter to Cornell University President Michael Kotlikoff and members of Cornell’s leadership and Presidential Task Force on Campus Sexual Assault. The letter responds to recent news from Cornell and offers research from Survivors + Allies, the student-led survivor advocacy and research initiative based at CSW|Streisand Center, as a resource for Cornell as it decides on next steps.

Cornell’s students, survivors, and advocates know their campus best, and CSW|Streisand Center encourages university leaders to listen closely to them.

Student Advocacy

Survivors + Allies began its research in the gap between what Title IX promises and what it requires of universities. Because that gap left students’ experiences largely undocumented, student researchers built their own evidence base. Their 2026 report, Dreaming Together: California Student Survivors Reimagining Campus Responses to Sexual Violence, draws on a survey of 1,649 students and 20 in-depth survivor interviews across California’s UC, CSU, community college, and private institutions.

The letter highlights the report’s “Survivors’ Calculus,” a framework for the hidden labor survivors undertake to weigh whether seeking support is worth the emotional, academic, and social costs before they ever reach an office door. It shifts the question from “why don’t students use our resources?” to “what is the resource actually costing the student to access, and does that cost make sense given what they’re likely to get back?”

The survey data reflect that calculation. Among survivors who did not report:

  • 49% said the incident “wasn’t serious enough” to warrant it
  • 32% cited confidentiality concerns
  • 18% cited mistrust of campus resources

Peer networks were the primary source of support: among survivors who reached out to anyone, almost half turned to a peer or friend, on or off campus.

Other findings in the report include that mandatory sexual violence and sexual harassment trainings often fall short of addressing survivor needs, that students facing intersecting forms of marginalization are not adequately protected by current systems, and that survivors overwhelmingly prefer confidential, survivor-centered care that prioritizes their autonomy over institutional liability.

Read more

Support resources

If you or someone you know has been affected by sexual violence, confidential support is available. UCLA students can reach the CARE Advocacy Office at advocate@careprogram.ucla.edu or by calling (310) 206-2465. Contact RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline 24/7 to connect with a real, live person who’s trained to help; call 800.656.HOPE or text HOPE to 64673.