‘Enough Is Enough’: Austinites Demand Change After Cornell Sexual Assault

By Gabrielle Caumon and Ella Grady

Photography By Gabrielle Caumon

Reporting Texas

 

Sexual assault survivor Samantha McCoy led protesters at Austin City Hall on Thursday in the wake of the Jane Doe case at Cornell University — but insisted that her organizing efforts weren’t just for her.

“We march for those who could not be here,” said McCoy, who organized Thursday’s protest at Austin City Hall. “We march for those who never got justice. We march for those who never got a chance to tell their story, and we march because change has never come from silence.”

Survivors and supporters planned to march toward the State Capitol and the University of Texas campus.

“How do I move on when I deal every day with a permanent disability from my rape?” said survivor Sophia Strother.

Strother said she was raped twice, abused and trafficked since childhood. She said she has endured over 15 surgeries in an interview with Reporting Texas. She said she could not march because her 16th procedure would be completed following the protest.

She said the first time occurred at age 13 in 1993 on the campus of Springfield College in Massachusetts, and that her case was left without justice.

The second time: New Year’s Day, 2021, in Austin.

While some rape victims are allowed by the courts to take part in their cases anonymously, Strother said she did not receive that protection during her Austin case trial on Nov. 23, 2023.

 

“During my trial, he got to see my date of birth, Social Security number, my address and my license plate number,” Strother said. “He got access to all of me in my trial. And after that, bank fraud, identity theft.”

Strother explained that her perpetrator was released on bond, even though guilty of aggravated sexual assault. It took two years for the trial to come to light, just like Jane Doe.

McCoy, an Associate Attorney at Texas-based law firm Nadler Nelson, is a member of the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault. She said she was a college student when she was forcibly raped and recorded while unconscious.

“What followed taught me something about how our society treats survivors,” McCoy said.

“I was asked a question I will never forget: Well, if you were unconscious, then haven’t you doubted you didn’t consent?”

 

After her experience, McCoy said she has spent her lifetime in advocacy work. She noted that her causes have gained worldwide interest in the wake of the Cornell case, in which a student said she was assaulted by fraternity members without her consent, and the recent allegations by a Louisiana State University student that she was raped by a current member of the college’s football team.

LSU student Kendall Francis made her allegations public in a Sept. 14 TikTok video. LSU police have reopened the investigation this week, following LSU football player Damien Shanklin’s overturned one-year suspension from the football team.

“It’s too much being left unsaid, and it’s unfortunate we have to wait until the Epstein scandal or Cornell or LSU to talk about it,” Strother said. “Why are we not talking about it outside of the major scandals that transpire?”

McCoy’s message to her audience was clear: The systems supposed to protect survivors are failing.

“Every survivor who decided to keep going anyway, and if there is a survivor listening today, whether it’s in this crowd or somewhere else, I want you to hear me,” McCoy said. “I believe you.”