Ithaca Groups Campaign Against Sexual Violence

By ELIZABETH GARDNER Sun Staff Writer

Editor’s Note: This article contains a discussion of sexual assault. Every 73 seconds, one person in the United States experiences sexual assault. According to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, sexual assault is more prevalent on college campuses than any other crime.

Across campus and in the city of Ithaca, organizations held events and demonstrations to bring awareness to sexual assault and education about sexual violence during Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

On Friday, April 28, the Cornell chapter of Callisto, a non-profit organization that builds technology to combat sexual assault, set up an exhibit of 3,367 red flags on the Arts Quad, representing the 13 percent of students who reported experiencing nonconsensual sexual contact involving physical force, threats of physical force or incapacitation since entering Cornell in a 2019 campus survey.

“I looked to my left to see a family touring and a dad with his two daughters looking at the sign alongside me. [They were] in complete horror.”

“[When I realized] that [the flags] were for sexual assault victims, I was shocked,” said Manraj Singh ’26. “I looked to my left to see a family touring and a dad with his two daughters looking at the sign alongside me. [They were] in complete horror.”

Callisto is a service that aims to end serial sexual assault by providing victims the opportunity to enter their perpetrator’s social media accounts into a database confidentially. If another person enters the same social media handle, they are “matched” and connected with a third-party attorney who will explain their legal options moving forward.