Cornell University Journalists Kept Rape Case in Spotlight

“We have the right to demand safety from our university administrators,” said one student journalist.

By Shireen Akram-Boshar , 

Truthout

Published

October 1, 2026

A student walks on the campus of Cornell University on September 29, 2026, in Ithaca, New York. The New York state attorney general has announced a review of the university’s initial response to allegations by a former Cornell student that she was raped at a campus fraternity in 2024.Spencer Platt / Getty Images


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Student journalists at Cornell University who have relentlessly pursued the story about the alleged gang rape by seven fraternity members on campus are demanding accountability from their institution.

“The Sun is really asking for something that everyone deserves, which is a level of transparency and accountability,” Sophia Dasser, editor-in-chief of Cornell’s student paper, told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Tuesday. “We are students, we have the right to demand safety from our university administrators, and we have the right to demand things like anonymized data reports of outcomes and sanctions and punishments from [sexual assault] cases that were reported.”

On September 16, Jane Doe filed a civil lawsuit accusing seven members of a campus fraternity of drugging and raping her in October 2024. The lawsuit also names the university and university leaders — as well as a local bar, the fraternity, and her sorority — for failing to protect her.

In November 2024, a month after the assault, the Tompkins County District Attorney had declined to file charges against the fraternity members accused of rape. But Jane Doe’s civil suit released new details — including messages in the fraternity’s group chat in which the alleged perpetrators encouraged other men to join — that sparked widespread outrage, pushing the DA’s office to reopen the case.

Central to this push was Cornell’s independent student newspaper, The Cornell Daily Sun, which published an editorial shortly after Jane Doe’s September lawsuit — “Cornell Won’t, We Will.” The piece began by naming the seven men accused of rape and sexual assault, and went on to condemn the university for its treatment of the case.

“We ask the questions the University has left unanswered,” the editorial team wrote. “If Cornell follows the law, then we should have access to a public deposition issued from the school, the Title IX investigation opened in January 2025 and how it concluded. Why were these men allowed to ‘pursue their education in a secure and nourishing environment’ and [Jane Doe] was not? Why was she not informed of the outcome of her own Title IX investigation? Who benefited from the 23 months of elapsed time when the public knew nothing? “

“Cornell has failed to protect its students,” the editorial concluded, and “failed to address the growing issue of sexual assault on campus with its pathetic task force.”

The student newspaper — one of the oldest student newspapers in the country – has reported on the case since 2024.

“I really wanted to look at what was happening,” student journalist Cereese Qusba, who has reported on the story for The Sun, told CNN on Tuesday. “I wanted to find out where the defendants were, what happened to the Title IX proceedings, what happened to a criminal investigation. So I started to look into this and I was able to get in contact with Jane Doe, and communicate with her and with her lawyers.”

But The Sun did not stop at coverage of the case. It has also demanded that the university revise its approach to handling sexual assault on campus.

“To The Sun, it was extraordinarily concerning that the last we had heard on any solution from the case was a sexual assault task force that had approached sexual misconduct as an educational problem, one that could be solved with workshops and lectures and website links,” said Dasser. “The individuals who would probably be committing the sexual misconduct are not the ones who would be showing up to these workshops. So we fundamentally believe that this was a poor approach to this issue.”

In a September 29 letter from the editor — “Cornell Won’t Listen, We Will” — Dasser fended off the university’s statements that have put blame on reporting of the case, writing: “We know reporting on a case does not make survivors less safe; silence does.”

The newspaper has also pointed out the university’s double standard in punishing Palestine solidarity activists more harshly than alleged perpetrators of sexual violence. On September 27, The Sun published an anonymous guest submission — “Cornell’s Dereliction of Duty” — pointing out that the university had arrested students for engaging in a sit-in that called for divestment from Israel in early 2024.

In the fall of that year, punishments for student activism in solidarity with Palestine became even harsher, the article states, “entail[ing] not only arrests but also months-long disciplinary proceedings and partial campus access bans.” At the same time, five of the seven men accused of rape were allowed to remain on campus following the Title IX proceedings, and their punishment largely focused on writing essays, the article notes.

The Sun has announced that on Thursday afternoon, Cornell’s Student Assembly will hold an open forum on sexual violence, where students can voice complaints regarding the university’s process. National groups like the Women’s March have now linked their October day of action to the Cornell case, suggesting that coverage of the case could spark wider mobilization against sexual violence across the country.

AOC Calls Out Cornell and ‘Culture of Rape’ as Prosecutors Reopen Campus Assault Case

The congresswoman spoke in Ithaca, New York and other cities ahead of a possible 2028 US Senate run.


Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) speaks at TU Berlin on March 15, 2025.
(Photo by Annette Riedl/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Julia Conley
Sep 28, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

As national outrage grew over an alleged rape of a former Cornell University student by seven members of a fraternity in 2024, US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday condemned a culture in which students accused of sexual assault are “protected” while survivors like the woman in the Cornell case, identified as Jane Doe, are often forced out of their campus communities.

The progressive New York Democrat spoke at a town hall in Ithaca, which has been rocked in recent weeks by the news that Doe filed a lawsuit against the school and several campus organizations and individuals over the alleged crime.

Ocasio-Cortez is visiting several cities across New York State this week, kicking off a voter outreach effort and meeting local officials ahead of a possible 2028 US Senate run. She has also been named as a potential presidential candidate. The event she spoke at Sunday was hosted by More Perfect University and titled “Students vs. Billionaires,” but Ocasio-Cortez began by speaking about the case, which prosecutors on Monday said they were reopening after learning of new evidence.

“The fact that Jane Doe, that survivor, lost her education—because you can’t stay in school when something like that happens to you... the fact that she had to lose her education and those men were protected by an institution and granted an Ivy League degree as a reward—never again,” said Ocasio-Cortez. “Never again.”

The Cornell case centers around an incident that allegedly took place in October 2024 at the Chi Phi fraternity house in Ithaca, according to the plaintiff’s lawsuit.

The student was visiting a friend at the house and was intoxicated when two male students coerced her into snorting a substance that they said was ketamine, the lawsuit says. She was then sexually assaulted, and one of the men subsequently sent a message in the fraternity’s group chat on Snapchat inviting other members to assault the victim.

Doe’s attorney, Thomas Giuffra, has said that two of the seven men named in the lawsuit were expelled from the school, while others were temporarily suspended or required to attend workshops or write essays.

Giuffra has also said that the Cornell Police Department did not follow up with Doe after her initial report, and that she was never contacted by a “specially trained detective or district attorney” regarding her allegations.

“In my experience, speaking with an abuse survivor requires delicacy, understanding, and specialized training,” Giuffra told ABC News. “An average university police officer would not have these skills.”

Matthew Van Houten, the district attorney for Tompkins County, New York, told ABC News Monday that his office was reopening an investigation into the case and considering whether to bring criminal charges. He told the outlet that the details of the assault in the lawsuit were “dramatically different” from the plaintiff’s statement to police in 2024, when his office relied on the Cornell Police Department’s investigation.

Two of the men accused in the lawsuit denied to ABC that they had committed sexual assault.

In 2024, Van Houten said, the victim did not allege that she was drugged or that she didn’t consent to sexual activities. He also said his office had not been not provided with a screenshot of the Snapchat messages.

Giuffra suggested the university authorities had not passed the evidence along to the DA’s office for its review of the investigation.

“My client went to the Cornell University Police because a crime was committed,” Giuffra told ABC News. “It was the obligation of the police to investigate the complaints. They were given the group chat inviting the members of the fraternity to rape my client. This was a critical piece of evidence supporting that a crime had occurred. Despite this there was no follow-up with Ms. Doe either by the Cornell Police or the Tompkins County district attorney.”

Ocasio-Cortez said Sunday that the fact that the students “posted in a group chat... means it was normal to them. That means it was acceptable to them. This is a culture, this is norms, these are practices. And what we must do is understand that we cannot protect those spaces anymore. We cannot.”

After the lawsuit was filed on September 14, student journalists at the Cornell Daily Sun expressed outrage at the university’s failure to publicly release information from a Title IX investigation Cornell officials opened regarding the alleged rape, which resulted in the expulsions and lesser punishments of the men accused of the attack.

“Safety is not adjacent to the educational mission—safety is, in fact, its precondition,” wrote the editors of the student-run newspaper. “Cornell has said as much, in the document that governs the student conduct, which announces that it is ‘intended to preserve a higher education community and residential campus where ‘any person’ in the community can pursue their education in a secure and nourishing environment.’”

“So we ask the questions the university has left unanswered,” continued the editors. “If Cornell follows the law, then we should have access to a public deposition issued from the school, the Title IX investigation opened in January 2025, and how it concluded. Why were these men allowed to ‘pursue their education in a secure and nourishing environment’ and she was not? Why was she not informed of the outcome of her own Title IX investigation? Who benefited from the 23 months of elapsed time when the public knew nothing?”

The editorial named the seven men accused in the plaintiff’s lawsuit, writing, “We know who you are and we refuse to let you benefit from this university’s concealment.”

Cornell on Monday released a statement saying it supported the Tompkins County DA’s decision to reopen an investigation into the case, and rejecting claims that officials had not properly sanctioned the men named in the lawsuit.

In Ithaca, Ocasio-Cortez said that “a lot of work” needs to be done at the federal level to protect college students from assaults on campuses.

“The culture of rape,” said the congresswoman, “is protected in elite institutions across the United States, including Cornell University... This entire country is sick and tired of not just financially corrupt, but morally corrupt leadership.”

Preservation Group ‘Gobsmacked’ as Trump Admin Dismisses Public Concern Over Triumphal Arch

By abruptly closing public consultation on the massive project, the administration “decided the public’s role is meaningless, unimportant, and of no value whatsoever,” said critics.


Washington, DC Metropolitan Police Department motorcycle police ride past a demonstration in protest of President Trump’s proposed arch planned to be erected near Arlington National Cemetery, near the Lincoln Memorial on May 24, 2026, in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Tom Brenner/Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Sep 28, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


A historical preservation group said it was “gobsmacked” on Monday after the Trump administration said it was closing down its consultation with experts about President Donald Trump’s plan for a triumphal arch in Washington, DC, because addressing their concerns and those from the general public would require them to deviate from the president’s vision for the project.

On Thursday, Travis Voyles, the Trump-appointed vice chairman of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP), sent a letter informing civil society and historic preservation groups that it was ending the federal review of how the 250-foot-tall arch would harm nearby historical sites.


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That review is required under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, which mandates that federal agencies, including the National Park Service (NPS), consider how a project will affect historic properties and seek ways to “avoid, minimize, or mitigate” the harms of a planned project.

The federal regulations governing the Section 106 process explicitly state that “the views of the public are essential to informed federal decisionmaking,” and require agencies to “seek and consider” those views.



The administration, via the NPS, has acknowledged that the Triumphal Arch would have “adverse effects” on historical sites, disrupting views of Arlington National Cemetery, the Lincoln Memorial, and dozens of others. Meanwhile, the proposal has received over 107,000 public comments, most of which are negative, according to a sample from the DC Preservation Office.

But rather than taking the public concern as a reason to reevaluate or scale back the project, Voyles explained that the ACHP was choosing to end public consultation altogether because taking it into account would require changing the “fundamental nature” of the project in a way that the administration would never accept.

“It is clear that the proposed undertaking and its potential effects on historic properties have raised significant public interest, and the NPS stated in its September 22, 2026 correspondence that it believes additional consultation on the existing proposal is unlikely to result in agreement... to resolve adverse effects,” he wrote.

“Further, the NPS stated that implementation of alternatives to avoid or minimize the adverse effects would alter the fundamental nature of the proposed undertaking and fail to achieve its goals,” he continued, explaining that “in recognition of the public’s significant concerns,” they were “hereby terminating” consultation.

Voyles said the ACHP would create its own recommendations and deliver them by October 7 to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, whose office is overseeing the project. Burgum is legally required to consider and formally respond to those recommendations, but unlike a legally binding memorandum of agreement, he does not have to follow them.

The ACHP has set a deadline for public comments for Tuesday night at 11:59 pm and said it planned another meeting with consulting parties.



One of the outside groups involved in the consultation process was The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF), a national historic-landscape preservation nonprofit, whose founder and CEO, Charles Birnbaum, worked at the NPS for 15 years and was the principal author of the federal guidelines for cultural landscapes.

Section 106 requires consultation to begin “at the early stages of project planning.” But TCLF says the review began only after the Commission of Fine Arts had approved the arch’s design.

Meanwhile, the TCLF has said that it and other relevant preservation groups were invited to only a single meeting on September 9, just weeks before public consultation was terminated. They said this indicated that any real alternative proposals had essentially been taken off the table.

On Monday, Scott MacFarlane of MeidasTouch News published a letter from the TCLF savaging the administration’s “extraordinary” reasoning for canceling the public consultation.

“Mr. Voyles has written a singularly audacious letter,” it said. “Rather than address the ‘public’s significant concerns regarding the adverse effects’ on one of the nation’s most revered and symbolically important cultural landscapes through an authentic public engagement process that doesn’t foreclose avoidance as a precondition, the administration, through its proxy, the ACHP, has decided the public’s role is meaningless, unimportant, and of no value whatsoever.”

The question of historical preservation is one of numerous legal issues facing Trump’s effort to build the arch, which is estimated to cost at least $100 million, though the administration has not published an official price tag.

Although it will be partially funded by taxpayers, Congress has not yet authorized the project, leading to a federal lawsuit seeking to block construction.

Outcry over the public funding for the project led Trump last week to propose using the monument as a “military complex” that would house drones, ammunition, and snipers. He has similarly attempted to justify his taxpayer-funded White House ballroom project by giving it a dual national security purpose.

Trump and RFK Jr.’s Gutting of CDC ‘Should Terrify Everyone,’ Advocates Say

“This is not normal,” said the president of the union representing CDC workers. “What we are witnessing is the dismantling of public health infrastructure our country relies on.”


US President Donald Trump speaks while Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. looks on in the White House in Washington, DC on May 12, 2025.
(Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian/White House/flickr/cc)

Jake Johnson
Sep 28, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


Reporting published over the weekend detailing the “zombified” state of the preeminent public health institution in the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, sparked deep alarm among advocates and experts, who warned that President Donald Trump’s gutting of the agency leaves the country badly unequipped to handle future emergencies.

“The grim state of affairs at the Trump CDC should terrify everyone,” Brad Woodhouse, president of the advocacy group Protect Our Care, said in a statement on Monday in response to reporting by The New York Times, which shows how Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other administration officials have made the CDC “a skeleton of the powerhouse it was.”

The Times noted that, as of May 2026, the CDC had 30% fewer employees than it did before the Trump administration initiated mass layoffs at the agency and across the federal government last year.

There is also a leadership vacuum at the agency, according to the Times, which reported that “only one of the 11 center directors from March 2025 remains at the agency” and “most of the other centers are being run by acting directors, some of whom were elevated from jobs one or two levels below.” The current CDC director is Dr. Erica Schwartz, who “has made no public statements about the importance of childhood vaccines or corrected misinformation from her boss, Mr. Kennedy,” the Times observed, even as recorded measles cases reach levels not seen in decades.

“Interviews with more than 30 current and former employees reveal the agency is now tightly controlled by Mr. Kennedy and his associates, and its scientists are finding it increasingly difficult to do their jobs effectively,” the newspaper reported.

Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who headed the CDC’s respiratory disease center before resigning in protest last year, told the Times that the Trump CDC “is not acting like how an agency like that should act.” In his resignation letter, posted to social media in August 2025, Daskalakis warned that “the nation’s health security is at risk and is in the hands of people focusing on ideological self-interest.”

According to the Times, the CDC’s center for emerging and zoonotic diseases, which manages Ebola and hantavirus, “now has nearly 300 fewer employees than in March 2025, and the respiratory disease center has lost nearly 200—about 17% in each case.”

“RFK Jr. has gutted the office that works on dangerous, killer emerging diseases,” US Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wrote over the weekend. “Disaster in waiting.”

Woodhouse of Protect Our Care said Monday that “after a catastrophic global pandemic followed by a record-breaking measles crisis, the CDC should be better prepared than ever.”

“Instead, the agency keeps getting caught with its pants down thanks to Donald Trump and RFK Jr.'s self-sabotage and war on science,” said Woodhouse. “Investigations are coming, but resignations should come much sooner.”

The Times reporting coincided with new data from American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 2883, which represents CDC workers. The union said the CDC has lost over 3,800 employees during Trump’s second term, nearly a third of the agency’s total workforce.

“This is not normal,” said Yolanda Jacobs, president of AFGE Local 2883. “What we are witnessing is the dismantling of public health infrastructure our country relies on.”

“CDC workers have endured eighteen months of chaos and confusion, from detrimental layoffs and RIFs, to being left in a constant state of panic about job security. This turmoil cannot continue,” Jacobs added. “Our workers, who have dedicated their lives to serving the American people, deserve better. Our country deserves an agency that is fully prepared to protect the public’s health within and outside its own doors. Protecting our nation’s public health workers also protects our nation’s public health.”

‘Consumers Will Pay the Price’: Fury as Trump Pushes Through Rule Change to Make Vehicles Less Efficient, More Polluting

“Oil companies will get a windfall from gutting the fuel economy standards, but the rest of us are going to be handing over more of our hard-earned paychecks to fill up the tank,” said one environmental lawyer.


Morning commuters travel along the 110 Freeway in downtown Los Angeles on Thursday, Sept. 17, 2026.
(Photo by Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Sep 28, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Scientists and environmental advocates are warning that the Trump administration’s rollback of fuel economy standards for cars and trucks will not only lead to more pollution but also hurt cash-strapped consumers already reeling from gas price spikes.

The administration announced on Monday that it was weakening the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, which require automakers to increase the fuel efficiency of their vehicles each year.

Biden administration rules required a 2% annual increase in fuel-efficiency standards, with the goal of bringing most vehicles to an average of 50.4 miles per gallon by 2031. Under President Donald Trump, the annual target has been reduced to just a 1% improvement each year, meaning five years from now the average car would be required to get just under 34.9 mpg.

The Department of Transportation, which finalized the rule, has argued that efficiency standards put an unnecessary burden on carmakers and has projected that lowering them will “reduce the average cost of a new vehicle by $1,300 for American families” and “save the American people $138 billion over the next five years.”

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy described the Biden-era increase as one that “forced automakers to produce more expensive electric vehicles that American families didn’t want.”




But Dave Cooke, senior vehicles analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists’ (UCS) Clean Transportation Program, argues that rather than being a benefit to consumers, “the federal government’s decision to gut fuel economy standards is a handout to automakers and oil companies that will strap American consumers already struggling with an affordability crisis.”

His group has estimated that since CAFE standards were first introduced in 2010, they have saved auto owners about $321 billion at the gas pump. And over just the past seven months, during which Trump’s war with Iran has caused gas prices to soar around the country, UCS estimates that consumers have saved $32 billion.

“Any small reduction in upfront vehicle costs will be outweighed by higher fuel expenses,” Cooke said.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) itself estimated in an impact analysis for the rule days ago that, as a result of the rule change, Americans will consume roughly 122 billion more gallons of gas than they would under the 2024 standards, resulting in average lifetime fuel costs of more than $1,600 more per vehicle—more than the administration estimates consumers will save by buying cheaper cars.

Transportation already accounted for about 17% of average US household spending in 2024, the latest year for which the Bureau of Labor Statistics has published data. Meanwhile, as the war with Iran has driven up costs, oil companies are reporting record profits. The top eight brought in nearly $93 billion in earnings in the second quarter of this year alone, according to an analysis by The Guardian.

“Oil companies will get a windfall from gutting the fuel economy standards, but the rest of us are going to be handing over more of our hard-earned paychecks to fill up the tank,” said Atid Kimelman, an attorney at the NRDC.

Americans won’t just spend more money; they’ll also produce way more planet-heating greenhouse gases. The standards being rolled back were projected by NHTSA to prevent about 659 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, 825,000 metric tons of methane, and roughly 24,000 metric tons of nitrous oxide emissions through 2050.

The Center for Biological Diversity pointed out that the US is already the world’s largest oil guzzler, accounting for 20% of global use, and that transportation is the No. 1 consumer of that oil.

“This move spells short- and long-term disaster for people’s health, the planet, and even US automakers who’ll sit on the sidelines while clean cars advance around the world,” said Dan Becker, the director of the group’s Safe Climate Transport Campaign. “This standard was the biggest single step any nation has taken to save gas, money at the pump, and auto pollution.”

Matthew Davis, vice president of federal policy for the League of Conservation Voters, emphasized that fuel efficiency standards are popular with the American public. A nationwide survey last month by the Global Strategy Group found that 73% of voters nationwide said they’d support “reestablishing fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks.”

“It is no secret that Trump promised handouts to Big Oil in exchange for campaign spending,” Davis said, “and he is delivering for those billionaire CEOs and polluters while he hurts working families, American manufacturing competitiveness, public health, and the environment at every turn.”

Trump Attack on Trans Rights, Sexual Assault Survivors Continues With Latest Move on Title IX

“The fact that they’re dropping this rule into place abruptly, without a comment period,” said one advocate, “shows how little they care about the safety of our students.”


US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon speaks during the daily briefing in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on November 20, 2025.
(Photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

Julia Conley
Sep 28, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s announcement that the Trump administration was formally rescinding Biden-era anti-discrimination protections was enough to spark outrage among women’s rights and LGBTQ+ advocates on Monday—but one group pointed to officials’ decision to make the change without gathering feedback from the public as even more reason for outcry.

“You get no say,” said Human Rights Campaign (HRC) as the Education Department announced it was taking former President Joe Biden’s Title IX rules off the books and returning to President Donald Trump’s 2020 regulations, which set stricter standards for what constitutes sexual harassment and requires colleges to hold court-like hearings regarding complaints of sexual misconduct, complete with witnesses who can challenge the credibility of survivors or the accused.

HRC said the administration was displaying “contempt for the rule of law and democratic governance” as it “denied the public any opportunity to comment on the dangers of returning to these prior rules, and has announced that the changes will go into effect tomorrow.”

“In its typical Orwellian fashion, the administration claims that ‘engaging in public notice and comment would be contrary to public interest,” said HRC.

Biden had amended Title IX regulations in 2024, clarifying protections against discrimination for students who are pregnant or are parents, transgender, or have other sex differences, and strengthening protections against sexual harassment and assault. The guidelines were subject to court challenges brought by Republican states.

The Trump administration has already been enforcing aspects of its own interpretation of Title IX, including by targeting schools that allow transgender students to play on women’s and girls’ sports teams. The Education Department said on social media Monday that in rescinding Biden’s Title IX rules, “the Trump administration is formally putting into regulation what the law has said all along: Title IX’s protections are based on SEX, not ‘gender identity.’”

Kelley Robinson, president of HRC, said Monday that Title IX “is, quite simply, about protecting students and ensuring that they are safe from abuse, harassment, and discrimination while they pursue their education. But Donald Trump and his cronies aren’t interested in any of that.”

“Instead of enforcing protections for students, they’re rescinding them,” said Robinson. “They don’t care if sexual harassment and assault go unaddressed. And they’re happy to strip funding away from school districts and states that are actually trying to keep students safe. We know who will be hurt: women, girls, and others who are vulnerable to sexual harassment, assault, and abuse—including LGBTQ+ students. The fact that they’re dropping this rule into place abruptly, without a comment period, denying families, educators, loved ones and the students themselves a say in how they should be treated, shows how little they care about the safety of our students.”

Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois, a vocal critic of Trump and a potential 2028 presidential contender, said Monday that his state would continue working to ensure that all students of all gender identities are safe on campuses. He accused Trump of “once again attacking the civil rights protections that help make our country great.”




At the National Women’s Law Center, Shiwali Patel, the group’s senior director of education justice, noted that the decision came as prosecutors reopened a high-profile sexual assault case at Cornell University, following public outrage.

“The Cornell University case is a devastating example of why robust federal Title IX enforcement matters,” said Patel. “Sexual harassment and assault continue to be pervasive in schools and, to the fullest extent possible, we should be working to enforce the laws that protect student survivors of sexual violence. Yet, Education Secretary Linda McMahon and the Trump administration have decided to ignore what survivors need, instead weaponizing Title IX to attack trans students.”

“While the administration is unlawfully eroding protections for trans students under the guise of ‘protecting women and girls,’ they are systematically weakening the very laws that keep students safe and schools accountable,” added Patel. “'Protecting women and girls’ means not limiting Title IX protections based on students’ reproductive traits and anatomy and enforcing Title IX to make sure schools are inclusive spaces that provide equal educational opportunity for all students.”

At HRC, Robinson said the decision “drives home how essential it is that we take action at the polls this November to start bringing some accountability to an administration that has turned its back on the very students Title IX was written to protect.”

Report Delivers ‘Starkest Warning Yet’ on How Climate Emergency Is Causing ‘Profound Changes’ for Oceans

“The ocean is transforming before our eyes: Warming, rising seas, and ecosystem degradation are interconnected signs of significant and long-term change.”


A coral reef around Taravai Island with many acropora corals is seen on February 16, 2018 in the Gambier Islands, French Polynesia.
(Photo by Alexis Rosenfeld/Getty Images)

Julia Conley
Sep 30, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


The 10th annual Copernicus Ocean State Report, released Wednesday by a team of more than 100 international scientists, provided the latest reminder that, as one United Nations official said, “the ocean is one of the clearest indicators of the profound shifts” that the climate crisis is causing.

Data gathered by Mercator Ocean International, the nonprofit that produced the report, revealed “an ocean warming at an alarming pace, with far-reaching consequences for marine life, coastlines, and communities worldwide,” said the group.

The study delivers ocean scientists’ “starkest warning yet of the profound changes sweeping across the ocean, as a likely unprecedented El Niño takes shape in the Pacific,” said Mercator, referring to the natural warming trend that is expected to be made more intense this year by planetary heating.

Drawing on four decades of data from satellites, buoys, sensors, and modeling, the scientists found that 2024 was marked by record-breaking marine heatwaves as well as an unprecedented extreme low sea level event, causing levels in the Bothnian Bay between Sweden and Finland to plunge 60 inches, bringing ferries to a halt for 18 hours.

Heatwaves in the Mediterranean and Black seas lasted more than 30 days and raised water temperatures by more than 8.3°F (4.6°C) above average.

“These are not isolated hot spells; they are occurring against a backdrop of sustained ocean warming that is changing the conditions marine ecosystems experience,” Blanca Fernández-Álvarez, a report author and a conresearcher at the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies, told CNN.



But along with extreme events documented in the report, the scientists found unmistakable trends showing no sign of letting up, including persistent damage to marine life due to ocean heating fueled by continued oil and gas extraction.

Small island states—some of the countries least responsible for carbon emissions that are leading to record heat absorption by the oceans—face worsening, “overlapping pressures” including sea-level rise that could wipe out coastal and island communities and the growing threat of more intense tropical cyclones.

Over the last three decades, reads the report, “ongoing reorganization of marine ecosystems around the world” hasr been made clear by persistent changes in growth patterns of phytoplankton, which support food webs and carbon flows, in nearly 5% of the ocean.

Heat stress also contributed to coral bleaching in 84% of the world’s reefs, threatening marine ecosystems as well as coastal communities that rely on reefs for protection and tourism.

“The ocean is transforming before our eyes: Warming, rising seas, and ecosystem degradation are interconnected signs of significant and long-term change,” said Pierre Bahurel, director general of Mercator Ocean International.

As humans have continued to emit carbon and other greenhouse gases despite warnings from energy experts and scientists, the rate of ocean heating has doubled over the past two decades, causing sea surface temperatures to skyrocket to record highs in 2023, 2024, and this year.

In 2025, the report says, the ocean absorbed an additional 23 zettajoules—about 40 times the energy consumed by the entire world last year. The energy absorption is equivalent to 12 atomic bombs going off every second for one year.

The global mean sea level rose by 3.8 ± 0.3 millimeters each year between 1999-2025, and the ocean has become about 17% more acidic over the last four decades, wreaking havoc on crucial underwater ecosystems.

Peter Thomson, the UN secretary-general’s special envoy for the ocean, emphasized that the dangers posed to the world’s oceans by continued fossil fuel extraction have been made clear over 10 years of reports by Mercator, as well as other warnings from scientists.

“What it tells us is unmistakable: The ocean is changing, and those changes are reaching into the lives, livelihoods, and security of people everywhere,” said Thomson. “We have the knowledge. We have the evidence. Now we need the political will to act.”

Despite Trump’s War on Clean Energy, Renewables Have Added 34 Times More Capacity Than Fossil Fuels and Nuclear

“Clearly, the White House has bet on the wrong horse.”


Landowners, educators, and government employees learn about grazing sheep and growing hay under solar panels during a tour of a Solar Stampede site in Saltillo, Texas on May 28, 2026.
(Photo by Angela Piazza/The Dallas Morning News via Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Sep 28, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

The Trump administration has waged a multi-front war on clean energy during the president’s second term. But according to newly published government data, it hasn’t worked.

Over the past 18 months, despite the administration’s best efforts, solar, wind, and battery storage added nearly 89 gigawatts of capacity—more than 30 times the growth of fossil fuels and nuclear power combined.

That is according to an analysis of new data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) released Monday by the nonprofit SUN DAY Campaign, which tracks federal renewable energy data.

From February 2025 through July 2026, utility solar capacity—large-scale projects that provide electricity to power grids—rose 33% over the previous year compared with the same time during 2025, while wind capacity rose 8%. The storage capacity for batteries, meanwhile, roughly doubled.

By contrast, US coal capacity dropped by 2.4%. Natural gas capacity rose by just 1.5%, while the capacity for fossil fuels and nuclear power combined rose by just 0.3%.

At the start of the second Trump administration, renewables accounted for a combined 22.3% share of US electrical generation. Eighteen months later, they now account for 29%.

“Over the last 18 months, the Trump administration has used every conceivable trick to delay, hinder, or cancel new clean energy projects,” said the SUN DAY Campaign’s executive director, Ken Bossong.

This has included an effective ban on wind development, a repeal of clean-energy tax credits in last year’s Republican budget law, a rollback of electric vehicle subsidies, and the cancellation of solar grants, as well as a host of policies meant to ramp up the production of oil, coal, and gas.

The growth of solar and wind reflects an economic reality that Trump has struggled to reverse: Wind and solar are among the cheapest sources of new electricity in much of the country, according to data from the EIA, which expects solar to remain the fastest-growing US source of power generation through 2027.

“Clearly,” Bossong said, “the White House has bet on the wrong horse.”

Alito Recusal in Landmark Climate Case Called ‘Bare Minimum’ Given Big Oil Tactics

Oil companies warned Alito that if the Supreme Court didn’t exempt them from state climate lawsuits, it could adversely affect his personal investments.


US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito speaks during the investiture ceremony for Texas Supreme Court justices Kyle Hawkins and James Sullivan at the state Capitol in Austin on Thursday, May 7, 2026.
(Photo by Jay Janner/The Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Sep 29, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Following years of pressure from critics who called out his severe conflicts of interest, the right-wing Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has recused himself from a major climate case on Monday, just days before the lawsuit was scheduled to be heard.

Next week, the court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in Suncor Energy v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, a case nearly a decade in the making that could determine whether oil giants can face billions of dollars worth of lawsuits for climate-related damages and misleading the public about the planet-heating effects of fossil fuels.

A coalition of environmental groups and anti-corruption watchdogs has pushed for Alito to recuse himself from the case because the justice personally holds stock in ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66—companies that face around two dozen climate lawsuits that could be directly affected by his ruling.

As Hannah Story Brown, the deputy research director on climate and governance issues at the Revolving Door Project, explained back in 2023, the Suncor case was promoted strategically by oil companies to allow Alito to get around his oil investments.

“While most of the lawsuits were brought against a dozen or so different fossil fuel companies, the Colorado municipalities are only suing ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy—the stocks of which Alito does not own,” she wrote for The American Prospect. “This presents an opportunity to get around Alito’s likely recusal from considering the other four petitions to which ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66 are parties.”

In May, a Supreme Court spokesperson said Alito had declined to recuse because he had no financial interest in either company that is a party to the Boulder case and had been advised by court counsel that recusal was not required.

However, in September, just weeks before oral arguments, the group Consumer Watchdog found that shareholders, including Alito, had received warnings from the two companies that climate lawsuits could adversely impact their businesses and, in turn, his investments. Oil industry groups, meanwhile, told the court in briefs that a ruling in the Suncor case could make those lawsuits go away.

“Justice Alito has a direct and documented financial stake in the outcome of Suncor v. Boulder,” explained Alexandra Nagy, Organizing Director of Consumer Watchdog. “Under the Supreme Court’s own Code of Conduct, Alito should recuse.”

Federal law expressly states that judges—including Supreme Court justices—must disqualify themselves from cases where their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” However, there has historically been a lack of enforcement for Supreme Court justices, because there is no higher court to rule on whether those ethics rules have been violated.

In 2023, following revelations about Justice Clarence Thomas’ receipt of gifts and travel from billionaire donor Harlan Crow, the Supreme Court adopted its own nonbinding ethics code.

Also informing that ethics policy were revelations about Alito, who was found to have taken a luxury fishing vacation with GOP billionaire investor Paul Singer, whose hedge fund has invested billions of dollars in Suncor. Singer’s hedge fund had business before the court at least 10 times, during which Alito did not recuse himself.

The justices ultimately still determine whether to disqualify themselves from cases, and critics have derided the ethics code as a “PR stunt.”

On Monday, however, the clerk of the Supreme Court sent a single-sentence notice to the parties in Suncor v. Boulder that “Justice Alito has determined that he will not continue to participate in this case.” It provided no further explanation for the justice’s decision.

In a post on social media, the Revolving Door Project called it “bad news for Exxon, and a win for the power of public pressure calling out the blatant corruption” of the court led by Chief Justice John Roberts, adding that the group had been “calling for [Alito’s] recusal for YEARS.”

Kathy Mulvey, director of the Fossil Fuel Accountability Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), also celebrated the decision but emphasized that it should never have taken this long to come to fruition.

“Justice Alito’s recusal in this case should’ve been a foregone conclusion,” Mulvey said. “While we welcome today’s announcement as a step toward a fairer, more impartial process for all parties involved, Justice Alito’s decision is the bare minimum we should expect from a justice on our nation’s highest court.”

UCS filed an amicus curiae brief before the court last month documenting what it described as ExxonMobil and Suncor’s “concealment and denial of the hazards they knew would result from the normal use of their fossil fuel products.”

“Internal corporate documents and other evidence now in the public domain show that the fossil fuel industry employed many of the same deceptive strategies used by the tobacco and lead industries, which have been the subject of extensive litigation,” Mulvey explained. “In those cases, courts addressed claims that manufacturers possessed substantial internal knowledge regarding the dangers of their products while simultaneously conducting coordinated public campaigns to minimize, obscure, or cast doubt upon those dangers.”

She added that “communities like Boulder deserve their day in court, through a process protected from financial conflicts of interest and from an industry hell-bent on securing immunity from liability.”

Alito’s recusal could have major ramifications for the case’s outcome. With only eight justices participating, a 4-4 split would leave intact a Colorado Supreme Court ruling allowing Boulder’s climate lawsuit to proceed, while producing no nationwide precedent that could shut down similar cases elsewhere.

The question of whether states and municipalities can sue fossil fuel companies takes on new urgency as the Trump administration halts federal action on the climate crisis and states and municipalities are left to fend for themselves.

An analysis commissioned in 2018 projected that the area around Boulder County would require between $96 million and $157 million to make only some of the necessary adaptations to climate change through 2050.

“What [Boulder] was saying was: ‘We want damages for this because we’re spending a ton of money dealing with climate change,” explained Sam Sankar, senior vice president at Earthjustice, in an interview with Slate. “'We’re having to reinforce roads to deal with extreme heat or extreme precipitation. We’ve got to rebuild infrastructure to deal with hundred-year floods that are happening every other year now. We’re dealing with heat stress and heat stroke and all the things that the people in our town are being affected by. We’ve never had wildfire seasons like this in the past. It’s very hard for us to deal with, and we’re spending a ton of money to upgrade systems, to fight the fires, or even to deal with the aftermath of these things.”’

“What Suncor and Exxon are trying to do right now is stop the case from going forward,” Sankar said. “What they’re saying is that this kind of case shouldn’t even get off the ground. There shouldn’t be a trial; there shouldn’t be any kind of judgment. They should be let off the hook before the trial begins.”

‘A Match Made in Hell’: Former GOP House Leader to Head Big Pharma Lobby

“Cantor, like PhRMA, is an experienced reverse Robin Hood, legislating money away from working families and toward giant corporations.”


Former Rep. Eric Cantor speaks during a portrait unveiling ceremony in the U.S. Capitol on September 15, 2026 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Heather Diehl/Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Sep 29, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

In what advocates for lower drug prices call “a match made in hell,” one of the pharmaceutical industry’s most powerful lobbying groups is tapping a former Republican leader in the US House of Representatives to head its political operations.

Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) named former Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) as its president and CEO on Tuesday amid what is shaping up to be a major fight over the government’s ability to regulate prescription drug prices.

Cantor served in Congress from 2001-14 and was named House majority leader in 2011. He resigned in 2014 after losing his Republican primary in a stunning upset to the Tea Party-backed former Rep. Dave Brat.

According to recent polling from KFF, more than half of US adults say they worry about affording prescription drugs and nearly three-quarters say the government should do more to limit prices.

PhRMA emphasized that Cantor’s appointment to replace the outgoing CEO Stephen Ubl comes at “a pivotal moment for America’s biopharmaceutical industry.”

It is certainly spending like it. As Politico reported on Tuesday, pressure from voters to address the affordability of prescription drugs has been met with an unprecedented lobbying blitz by PhRMA, which poured a record $38 million into efforts to keep Capitol Hill in line.

PhRMA said Cantor’s “global business acumen coupled with policy and political experience at the highest levels of government make him an ideal person to lead PhRMA during this critical next chapter.”

Peter Maybarduk, the access to medicines director for the consumer watchdog group Public Citizen, agreed that Cantor was a perfect fit for PhRMA, but for very different reasons.

“Cantor, like PhRMA, is an experienced reverse Robin Hood, legislating money away from working families and toward giant corporations,” Maybarduk said.

During his tenure in Congress, Cantor received roughly $900,000 from the pharmaceutical and health product industry, putting him 19th among all House candidates between 1999 and 2018, according to a JAMA Internal Medicine study of data from the Center for Responsive Politics.

That spending paid dividends, with Cantor voting against legislation aimed at lowering prescription drugs—including one bill in 2003 that would have allowed Americans to import low-cost prescription drugs from abroad and another in 2007 that would have required the federal government to negotiate drug prices for Medicare recipients.