About the mission
It started with one story. It's for everyone who was told “not you.”
This page discusses sexual assault.
How it started
In September 2026, a former Cornell student filed a lawsuit alleging that she was drugged and sexually assaulted by seven fraternity members in 2024. The case spread across social media almost overnight.
What stayed with me wasn't only the night she describes. It was what came after: how long it can take for a woman to be heard, and how often she's asked to prove herself again and again before anyone treats her as credible.
Telling girls to use their voice means nothing if we don't listen when they do.
Believing survivors starts with listening to them: taking women seriously the first time they speak, not the fifth.
What the lawsuit alleges, and what's been reported
These are allegations in a civil lawsuit and have not yet been tested in court. Updated September 30, 2026.
- Oct. 19, 2024, around 11 p.m.She arrives at the fraternity house to visit a friend. According to the lawsuit, she is pressured to take ketamine, a drug she had never used, and members invite others to join through a group chat.Sources: NPR; CBC News
- Until about 5:45 a.m.The lawsuit alleges an assault by multiple members lasting hours, ending when she lost consciousness.Sources: CNN; NPR
- Nov. 8, 2024She reports to campus police. The chapter and the seven students are temporarily suspended, and Cornell opens a Title IX investigation with at least 12 hearings. She later leaves the university.Sources: AP via PBS News; Yahoo News
- The outcomeHer attorney says 2 of the 7 were expelled, and the other 5 received lesser sanctions, including suspensions, workshops, or essays. Cornell says no one was offered an essay as their only consequence, and the chapter remains barred from campus.Sources: CNN; CBC News
- Sept. 16, 2026She files a civil lawsuit against the seven students, the fraternity, Cornell, and others.Source: AP via PBS News
- Late Sept. 2026The district attorney reopens the investigation and plans to take evidence to a grand jury. He has said her first sworn statement to police differs from the lawsuit's account. No one has been criminally charged.Sources: AP via PBS News; CNN
It's bigger than one campus
We tell girls to speak up.
To advocate for themselves. To trust their instincts. To use their voice.
But sexual assault is still one of the things we talk about least. Most survivors never report it, and many never tell anyone at all.
Different stories. Different stakes.
These stories are not the same. But they can leave us asking some of the same questions.
- Who gets to speak?
- Who gets believed?
- Who gets educated?
- Who gets to lead?
- Who gets told that this space was never meant for her?
From an archive to a conversation
Proof of YOU.
not YOU. began as an online archive of reflections. Now it's growing into a conversation series with the people who were told “not you” and dismantled it.
- 1Starting in BostonShort reels on Instagram and TikTok, interviewing students at Harvard and MIT about who told them “not you” and what they did next.
- 2Growing city by cityTaking the conversation beyond Boston to campuses and communities across the country.
- 3Always openAnyone can leave a reflection here for the next person, on camera or not.
For organizations, companies, schools, and foundations
Help more people see themselves.
If your organization wants to support not YOU., we'd love to talk.
olivia@oliviazhang.net
- Fund episodesSponsor Proof of YOU. conversations, subtitles, and guest support.
- Bring it to your campus or communityHost a screening, talk, or filming stop.
- Amplify the storiesShare episodes and reflections with the people you reach.
#1 Amazon Best Seller in Nonprofit. YOUth: The Young Person's Guide to Starting a Nonprofit. I wrote it to break barriers and push young people who've been told “not you” to build anyway.
About Olivia Zhang
Why I started not YOU.
I still remember the worst night of my life. I was fifteen, and I had collapsed on the kitchen floor, sobbing. In the span of a few months I had lost my grandfather and my teacher, the two people I was closest to, to cancer. At school I was made fun of for how I looked, what I cared about, and where my family came from.
My parents immigrated from China at thirty with nothing. They learned a new language and culture, applied for job after job, and spent more than twenty years climbing so my sister and I could have what they never had. Every step of the way, they had to stay quiet. Speaking up could mean losing their jobs, or their place in this country. Silence became how they survived.
There's a Chinese phrase I heard my whole childhood: ren jia kan. Everyone will look. Building a nonprofit, posting my journey online, choosing to lead: ren jia kan.
Since then I've been told I'm too young, too emotional, and not fit to be a leader, sometimes by men with daughters twice my age. People who had never met my family, or me, assumed lies about my background and my work, simply because my story didn't fit the narrative they expected for someone like me. I've had to prove myself over and over and over again. People still ask me to “prove” my success.
I heard, from people close to me, that I was worthless. When you hear that enough, you start to believe it.
That night on the kitchen floor, I looked up at the moon and asked for a sign to keep going.
The signs came as people. Mentors, like my high school principal, who saw a leader in me before I could, sat with me after every rejection, and asked “what's next?” My closest friends, at home and at Harvard, who reminded me I was enough without the achievements.
So I kept building. I built Cancer Kids First over seven years, starting with a first few months full of rejection emails. My first book took a long line of noes before a yes. So did the TEDx stage.
Along the way, I built a platform online to share resources and advice, and to prove that young people can lead and that women of color can change the world.
Six years after that night, I'm finishing my last year at Harvard, a place I never dared to dream about. Ren jia kan. Everyone will look. So let them look, when an Asian American girl takes up space instead of shrinking to fit someone else's comfort.
not YOU. is how I pay it forward: making sure the next girl who hears “not you” sees someone who heard it too, and kept going. That's what Proof of YOU. means. You shouldn't have to prove yourself alone.
If any of this is close to where you are right now, .
Social impact recognized by
- Forbes 30 Under 30, Social Impact youngest honoree, 2026
- L'Oréal Paris Women of Worth youngest honoree, 2025
- George H.W. Bush Points of Light Award 2026
- Diana Legacy Award 2023