In the wake of sexual assault allegations at Cornell University, the victimization of women on college campuses has returned to the public conversation.
Cornell’s 2025 state-mandated sexual misconduct survey reported that 35% of undergraduate women said they had experienced sexual assault since arriving at the university. The undergraduate response rate, however, was only 13%. Cornell’s presidential task force itself warned that the low response rate limits estimates and makes the results difficult to interpret.
Parents often sacrifice their daughters on the altar of institutional prestige. The consequences of such choices are increasingly severe.
Conservative parents correctly identify a parallel story about the ideological and spiritual dangers of college education. They argue that universities teach women to harbor resentment toward men, abandon faith, engage in promiscuous behavior, embrace progressive politics, and accumulate debt for degrees whose value is questionable. A common cultural meme depicts a well-adjusted high school graduate returning from college with tattoos, purple hair, piercings, and wearing a “down with the patriarchy” T-shirt.
Yet both sides continue to send their daughters to institutions like Cornell.
