Sabrina Karim calls for Cornell to acknowledge institutional failure

Karim says Cornell must acknowledge institutional failure and pursue reform to rebuild trust.

“Second, rebuilding trust requires institutions to acknowledge failure. That does not mean prejudging every contested fact or assigning responsibility before an investigation is complete. It means recognizing when systems have not worked as they should. In recent weeks, Cornell and the District Attorney’s Office have become involved in reports about where responsibility for different aspects of this case lay. But this does little to rebuild public trust when the larger concern is that the system itself failed. Institutions earn credibility by demonstrating that they are capable of self-examination and correction.”