San Jose, CA – On October 22, students from San Jose State University rallied at the Smith and Carlos statues to demand an end to sexual assault, justice for Jane Doe, and justice for survivors. The rally was organized by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) at SJSU as part of National SDS’s week of action.

The week of action was called in light of the Cornell 7 case, in which seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity at Cornell University gang raped Jane Doe. Protesters chanted, “Cornell is corrupt, expel the rapists, lock them up!”

Cici Liu from SDS noted, “Cornell can turn a blind eye when it comes to rapists. None of the seven students named in the sexual assault case at Cornell have been arrested. Only two of the seven have been expelled, and a number of them were assigned essays and workshops as part of their ‘punishment’ for their participation in this heinous assault.”

Ethan Maruyama from SDS stated, “A federal Title IX investigation also found that SJSU failed to properly handle reports of [Scott Shaw’s] misconduct dating back to 2009. You mean to tell me it took 11 years for a sexual abuser working at our university to be investigated and tried in court?”

Maruyama went on to expose how the university administration is complicit in sexual violence by inviting military recruiters onto campus. “In the Republic of Korea, where the United States stages 80 military bases, Korean women are being forcibly trafficked, prostituted and raped by U.S. military soldiers.”

“This morning, I got news that a military recruiter in Sunnyvale, just a few miles away from here, was charged with sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl,” Maruyama continued. “By allowing military recruiters onto campus, our administration is complicit in these crimes.”

Mateo Deal from the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) ended the rally by highlighting how the Trump administration is weaponizing Title IX against students, which was used against a transgender women’s volleyball athlete at SJSU. “The Trump administration has further entrenched women’s and LGBTQ oppression by rolling back Title IX 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.”

Deal noted how the rollbacks on Title IX harm LGBTQ students while protecting rapists, saying, “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.”

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