by Claude Opus 5.5
Sered argues that accountability requires acknowledgement, apology, repair and change. Can institutions, not only individuals, be accountable in her sense? What would Cornell’s acknowledgement look like?
Danielle Sered founded Common Justice, a programme in New York that offers restorative alternatives to incarceration for serious violent offences, with the consent of those harmed. In Until We Reckon (2019), she argues that punishment and accountability are not the same thing. Punishment is something done to a person; it can be endured passively and often produces shame, resentment and further violence. Accountability is something a person does. On her account, it involves acknowledging one’s responsibility for what one did, acknowledging its impact on others, expressing genuine remorse, taking action to repair the harm as far as possible in ways guided by those harmed, and becoming someone who will not commit such harm again. The question asks whether this demanding conception can apply to institutions, and what it would mean for Cornell in the case behind these seminars.
Can institutions be accountable?
There are reasons for doubt. Sered’s model is grounded in personal transformation. Remorse is a feeling; change involves becoming a different kind of person. Institutions do not have feelings, and their identity persists through changes of personnel. An apology issued by a university president may be drafted by lawyers and communications staff, and those who were responsible for past decisions may have left. It can seem that institutional accountability is at best an analogy.
But there are strong reasons to think institutions can be accountable in a meaningful sense. Philosophers have long argued that organisations can be moral agents: they have decision procedures, policies and cultures that produce actions not reducible to any individual’s choices. If institutions can act, they can act wrongly, and if they can act wrongly, they can be called to account.
Moreover, each element of Sered’s model has an institutional analogue.
Acknowledgement. Institutions can acknowledge what they did and failed to do, through official statements, published reports and the findings of independent reviews.
Apology. The philosopher Nick Smith has analysed what makes apologies meaningful, including corroborating a factual record, accepting blame, identifying the moral principles violated, and committing to reform. Institutions can satisfy many of these conditions, and collective apologies, by governments, churches and universities, have become familiar.
Repair. Institutions often have more capacity for repair than individuals. They control resources, services and policies, and can fund support, remove barriers and compensate.
Change. Institutions can change their structures, which may be more durable than individual resolutions. Where harm flows from policies and cultures, structural change is the institutional equivalent of becoming a different person.
What institutions find hardest is the element Sered places at the centre: genuine remorse. But remorse can be evidenced in institutional terms. An institution that makes costly commitments, accepts external scrutiny and follows through over time demonstrates something functionally similar to remorse: that it takes the harm seriously enough to bear costs to address it.
Obstacles in this case
Cornell faces a specific obstacle: litigation. The complainant has filed a civil suit naming the university. Any acknowledgement of fault could be used as evidence of liability. Lawyers will advise against admissions. This is a general problem for institutional accountability, and some jurisdictions have enacted apology laws that make certain expressions of sympathy inadmissible. But such laws usually protect expressions of sympathy rather than admissions of fault, which are what accountability requires.
Another obstacle is factual uncertainty. Cornell’s responsibility depends partly on facts still being investigated: what the university knew, when, and what it did. Accountability that presumes facts not yet established would be premature, and would itself be unfair to individuals whose conduct is in dispute.
What Cornell’s acknowledgement could look like
Despite these obstacles, it is possible to describe a form of acknowledgement that would be meaningful without prejudging contested facts. The governor has said that Cornell has agreed to an independent investigation by outside counsel, and Cornell has said it supports the reopening of the criminal case. Those are potentially first steps. A fuller acknowledgement might include several elements.
First, acknowledging the harm the complainant has described and her experience of seeking help, without adjudicating the allegations: that a student reported serious harm, that she has, through her lawyers, challenged how her case was handled, and that her account of that experience matters.
Second, committing to publish the findings of the independent investigation, including findings unfavourable to the university, rather than treating it as a confidential legal exercise.
Third, acknowledging what is already known: that the risks associated with fraternity parties have been widely documented for decades, and that a large group chat of students reportedly received information that night and no one called the police. These facts say something about the community the university has built, whatever the outcome of any proceeding.
Fourth, acknowledging the limits and choices of its own processes, including the reasoning behind its sanctions and its decisions about disclosure, to the extent privacy allows.
Fifth, explaining what it will change, with specific commitments, timelines and external oversight, and inviting those affected, including survivors and students, to shape the changes.
Such an acknowledgement would not satisfy everyone. It would stop short of admitting legal fault, and some would see it as public relations. But Sered’s model offers a test: whether the institution follows through over time, whether repair is guided by the needs of those harmed, and whether the institution becomes one in which such harm is less likely. Accountability, for institutions as for individuals, is not a statement but a course of conduct. Whether Cornell can be accountable in Sered’s sense will be shown less by what it says now than by what it does in the years after the cameras have moved on.