I Raised My Daughters in Fear. Cornell Showed Me Why.
In 2024, my younger daughter was accepted to Cornell University. We said no.
Last week, I found out what happened on that campus the same fall she would have arrived.
I have not been able to shake that thought. Because a story like this is exactly what I have been afraid of for as long as I have been a mom.
I am a mother of two daughters. And for most of their lives, I raised them in fear.
From the time they were little until 12th grade, I didn’t let them go on sleepovers. EVER. Even if we knew the family.
When they went to college, I didn’t let them go on out-of-town trips with their friends. My older daughter is in medical school now, and we still have a “discussion” before any trip she takes.
Every time they left their dorm, and now their apartment, they got the same lecture from me: do not take anything from anyone, do not drink anything from anyone, even if they are your friend, blah blah blah.
They got sick and tired of me. I sounded like a broken record. When they were out, I tracked their location. Until they came home, I stayed up.
I still do.
Lately, I had started to wonder if I had gone too far. Had I made them scaredy cats? Had I hurt their confidence? Had I taken away their freedom? Had I stopped them from living life to the fullest?
And then the Cornell news came. It gave me chills. It confirmed what I had feared my entire life and I’ll keep fearing.
You have probably heard by now. A former Cornell student has filed a lawsuit saying that in October 2024, at a Chi Phi fraternity house on campus, she was drugged and then raped by seven men for hours. One of them announced her in a fraternity group chat. No one came to help her. Instead, more men came into the room. That text chat is beyond disgusting.
What did Cornell do? Nothing to bring justice for this heinous crime. Yes, they made them write an essay! Now, almost two years later, the girl filed the lawsuit, and when it got mainstream, the district attorney reopened the case.
2024 — year when my daughter was accepted, we visited the Cornell campus for admitted students’ day. In the end, we turned Cornell down because the ROI just wasn’t there on that high tuition bill, and she went to another great school. It was a financial decision. Nothing more.
But if she had said yes, she would have been a freshman on that campus that October.
That girl could have been my daughter.
After the Cornell news went mainstream, my daughters went out and bought pepper spray. I know pepper spray would not have helped that girl. But it tells you something. Young women everywhere are on high alert right now.
When my older daughter started college, I learned that roughly one in four undergraduate women experienced sexual abuse during college, according to the Association of American Universities’ campus climate survey. That number never left me. More recently, I have seen figures around one in three in some college-specific surveys. So we are going in the wrong direction.
Rape can take a life without ending it.
I was lucky to never experience rape. But even decades later, I still remember every single man who touched me inappropriately when I was growing up in India. When I think about it, I still get angry, very very angry. So, I cannot imagine what rape does to a girl.
It can take her confidence.
Her innocence.
Her trust.
Her faith in men.
Her ability to feel safe in a relationship.
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And none of it is easy to rebuild. Survivors carry it every single day, for the rest of their lives.
And too often, the systems around them make it worse by minimizing it. Cornell is only the latest example.
You may remember the Stanford case involving Chanel Miller and Brock Turner. Turner, a Stanford swimmer, was convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman. He was sentenced to six months in county jail and released after three. The judge said a prison sentence would have a “severe impact” on him. On him.
Chanel Miller later wrote about her experience in her memoir, Know My Name. When I heard her speak at an event, I kept thinking:
What did it cost her to get here?
How much of her life went to fighting for justice instead of just living it?
Who would she have become without her rape?
When you have daughters, these are never just news stories. You read them and you immediately think:
What if that were my daughter?
I raised my daughters in fear. Cornell confirmed that fear. But fear comes with a price, and I worry my daughters are the ones paying it.
Does all that fear keep them safe?
Or does it stifle their growth, their confidence, their independence?
I honestly don’t know anymore.
As a mom, I have had so many sleepless nights, staring at a dot on a map, waiting for the door to open.
So maybe the question is not only: “How do I keep my daughter safe?” It is also: “How do I teach her to be aware, confident and prepared, without taking away her freedom?”
I am still trying to find that balance.
And there is a much bigger question.
Why do we have to raise our daughters in fear? Fear that something bad will happen to them?
Why can’t we raise our sons with some fear too? Fear of the consequences of doing something wrong?
That fear only works if the consequences are real. And that means institutions need to own this. Authorities need to own this.
And here is the irony. On that admitted students’ day, Cornell gave us a $100 ticket for parking on the wrong side of the road.
Well, Cornell, you are the one on the wrong side of the road now. You let rapists go just by writing an essay.
Can I write an essay for my parking ticket?
So, to Cornell’s leaders, and to the district attorney: If that girl were your daughter, would you let it slide with an essay? Would you decide there was not enough to bring charges?
And until institutions and authorities treat every student like their own daughter, mothers like me will keep lying awake at night, raising our daughters in fear instead of freedom.
#NOMORE
