Mass NOW Plans Boston Common Rally on Campus Sexual Violence

Mass NOW and Jane Doe Inc are holding a rally on Boston Common from 6 to 8 p.m. on October 8 to press colleges to treat the prevention of sexual violence as an institutional duty, the executive director of Mass NOW wrote in an opinion piece published by CommonWealth Beacon.

The gathering, called the Cornell Jane Doe Solidarity Rally, follows a civil suit in which a onetime Cornell University student says she was drugged and assaulted by seven fraternity members in 2024 and that the school did not respond adequately, according to the piece. A prosecutor has restarted a criminal inquiry and New York's attorney general is examining how Cornell handled the matter.

The author, a 2013 Boston University graduate who organized around campus sexual assault as a student there, wrote that Mass NOW started a Feminist Campus Network in the fall of 2026 to link student organizers at colleges across Massachusetts, help them share resources and lobby elected officials.

The piece also cited the removal of Pride flags from Boston University offices earlier in 2026, which drew protests, and changes by the Trump administration that returned Title IX sexual misconduct cases to an earlier federal framework.

The Boston Foundation partners on the opinion platform that carried the essay.

This story was first reported by CommonWealth Beacon.