Survivor testimony and calls to address sexual violence shaped a Washington rally that drew hundreds to the base of the Washington Monument on Thursday evening before participants marched to the White House. WTOP News reported that speakers shared personal experiences and that the gathering ended with a moment of silence and music.
The Washington, D.C. gathering, first reported by WTOP News, was one piece of a coordinated national day of action scheduled for 6 to 8 p.m. EDT Thursday, with participants told to meet on the north lawn of the Washington Monument near the German-American Friendship Garden, according to an event listing from action.womensmarch.com. The listing described the action as a joint effort by survivors, youth, feminist organizations and community members.
WTOP reported that a speaker identified as Riley described being harmed by someone in a relationship she had believed was safe, an experience that led her to step away from her education. She said she plans to become a lawyer. Another speaker, identified as Grace, told the gathering that survivors of sexual assault do not have to continue living this way.
Calls to Intervene and Change the Law
Aaron Parnas urged men to challenge friends who joke about women too drunk to consent and to intervene when they see someone being pulled into a room, WTOP reported. Cheyenne Hunt called for changes to the law and for women's sexual assault claims to be taken more seriously. The crowd chanted, “What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!” before marching from the Mall to the White House, according to WTOP.
The Washington rally was explicitly framed as support for the woman at the center of gang-rape allegations against Cornell University fraternity members, part of a national day of action tied to a civil lawsuit filed September 16. The suit, filed by a woman identified as Jane Doe, alleges she was gang-raped on October 19, 2024, by seven members of Cornell's Chi Phi fraternity, according to USA Today. All seven men named in the suit have denied wrongdoing and have not been charged with crimes, the outlet reported. Cornell announced on Oct. 6 that it had retained former acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates to review the school's sexual-assault policies and procedures, per the same report.
What Cornell’s Survey and Reporting Data Show
Cornell’s March 2026 task-force report said its 2025 survey found that 35% of undergraduate women and 8% of men reported experiencing sexual assault during their time at Cornell. Those survey responses are not a direct count of crimes or formal reports to the university; the report also cautioned that the undergraduate response rate was 13%, down from 34% in 2023, limiting estimates and interpretation, according to the Cornell University Presidential Task Force on Campus Sexual Assault. Cornell says community members may report sexual misconduct to university or other law enforcement, choose not to report, and seek assistance and resources from the university, according to the Cornell Office of Civil Rights, Title IX & Sexual Misconduct. Separately, Cornell’s Annual Security Report, Campus Watch, includes reported Clery Act crime statistics for the previous three calendar years across campus, noncampus property and nearby public property, according to Cornell University Public Safety.
Protests Spread Across More Than 40 States
The Cornell case had already drawn hundreds of student demonstrators to the Ithaca campus earlier in the week, with protesters demanding the university expel or revoke the degrees of the fraternity members named in the allegations, according to The Washington Post. By Thursday, the station reported that students on more than 50 campuses nationwide were expected to walk out of class as part of the broader mobilization. The day of action ultimately encompassed walkouts, rallies and vigils in communities and on college campuses in more than 40 states, the outlet noted.
Estimates of the overall scale varied by outlet: azfamily.com reported more than 150 demonstrations held nationwide, while fox9.com put the figure at about 150 rallies, walkouts and vigils scheduled across roughly 40 states. Spectrum News reported that rallies were held across the country and in New York state as part of the coordinated push, as detailed by Spectrum News 1.
From Chicago to Tucson, Students Walk Out
In Chicago, about three dozen students filled the normally quiet quad at the University of Illinois Chicago, holding protest signs and passing out flyers, according to the Chicago Tribune. Nearby, hundreds of students at Lincoln Park High School walked out of class at midday in solidarity, marching toward the Lincoln Park Zoo administrative office while chanting, “No means no, sexual violence has got to go,” the paper reported.
Farther west, protesters at the University of Arizona marched from campus to Greek Row to share concerns about the school's response to sexual violence, according to azfamily.com. In Minnesota, a rally held off the University of Minnesota campus was described by fox9.com as part of the national day of action and an expression of solidarity with the woman at the center of the Cornell allegations. And in New York, around half a dozen women who said they were victims of sexual abuse by powerful men gathered in Union Square calling for accountability, as reported by amNewYork.
