Title IX, LGBTQ Oppression and the Fight Against Rape Culture

Fight Back! News Service is circulating the following statement from the Women’s & LGBTQ Work Team of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

The Freedom Road Socialist Organization’s LGBTQ and Women’s Work Team strongly condemns the Cornell 7 and the university leadership and police department responsible for protecting the rapists involved since 2024.

This case is just one example of the deeply embedded legal and cultural tools used by universities across the country to protect rapists. While fraternities, reactionaries, racists and bigots are given slaps on the wrist or not held accountable at all, students across the country are facing the threat of expulsion, suspension, or some other form of punishment simply for calling for a Free Palestine or holding a protest on their campus with a megaphone.

The ruling class isn’t satisfied with just maintaining the current system that protects rapists and punishes revolutionaries, they want to take things further. The Trump administration has further entrenched women’s and LGBTQ oppression by rolling back Title 9 protections. The legal ruling now only relates to biological sex, making it effectively legal to discriminate against people on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity on college campuses that don’t have statewide protections against these forms of discrimination.

The Title 9 changes also affect how schools must respond to sexual misconduct reports on campus, requiring colleges to have courtroom hearings and requiring an even higher standard of proof for sexual assault and harassment. Sexual misconduct was already difficult to discipline students on campus. This ruling makes survivors even less likely to report their attempts. In practice, sexual misconduct and assault are legal on the majority of campuses in the United States.

The Republican party-led attacks on Title 9 are more than a personal vendetta. They aren’t just a tool to use LGBTQ as scapegoats on campus. The rollbacks put in place are being used to protect the status quo as it exists. The ruling makes it impossible for there to be a real legal pathway to hold fraternities accountable, perpetuating sexual assault on campus and letting rapists know they can commit their crimes with little to no accountability. It lets schools get off the hook for refusing to come to the aid of victims. It defends rich and powerful students from even being accused of rape by demoralizing those who come forward. It keeps LGBTQ students in a state of fear and gives chauvinistic university leadership the opportunity to make their lives hell on campus.

In the long term, the rollbacks on Title 9 and the increasing attention on the Cornell 7 case spell doom for the billionaires and multimillionaires who pressure politicians and universities to protect and defend rapists and LGBTQ discrimination on campus. More people are becoming conscious of the rotten corruption and injustice allowed on campuses, and the struggle for socialism will intensify as more people in the United States are forced to realize it is the only way to truly end rape culture and anti-LGBTQ attacks on campus and in our communities.

Justice for Jane Doe! Convict the Cornell 7! End Trump’s attacks on Title 9!

#WomensMovement #LGBTQ #StudentMovement #Cornell #SexualViolence