A group of local sexual assault survivors and their supporters gathered Saturday in downtown Appleton to speak out in response to the Cornell University case.
The demonstrators, mostly women with some men among them, held signs at Houdini Plaza at College Avenue and Appleton Street. Passing drivers honked as the group chanted and held signs reading, among other messages, “We want sentences, not essays” and “Rapists deserve real punishments.”
The demonstration was organized by Hallie Shopbell, a 55-year-old social worker and survivor, who said the Cornell case brought back feelings from her own experience and from friends who had also been assaulted. She said the main message was that all survivors are Jane Does in one way or another.
The woman at the center of the Cornell case alleges she was drugged and raped by seven Cornell students in 2024, when she was 20. An initial criminal investigation closed without charges. After she filed a lawsuit in New York court on Sept. 16, prosecutors reopened the case, and a judge ruled Friday that she may keep using a pseudonym. None of the seven men named in the lawsuit has been criminally charged, and the allegations remain allegations.
The case is now being re-investigated by New York Attorney General Letitia James, appointed as special prosecutor by Gov. Kathy Hochul. Fellow demonstrator Margaret Paarmann-Laven, also a social worker and survivor, said the case had been triggering for survivors in her caseload, and she criticized public victim-blaming directed at Doe.
