the Cornell case (reader discretion advised)
In October of 2024, “Jane Doe,” as she is now referred to, went to Cornell’s Chi Phi fraternity chapter already intoxicated, where she and some of the male members had more alcohol and also snorted ketamine. They engaged in simultaneous sex with multiple people multiple times. One of the men even posted in a frat group Snapchat that “free p*ssy” was available in the house. It’s an ugly story. Consent is debated. When the debate over consent began is also ambiguous.
Doe said she was incapacitated and unable to give consent, reporting the incident to campus police several days after it occurred. The police then made the decision to bring no criminal charges due to New York Penal Law § 130.00, which states if one willingly drinks alcohol or consumes drugs, they are not legally considered "mentally incapacitated.” As said, it’s an awful, ugly case. Doe filed a civil suit this past September against Cornell University, its Chi Phi fraternity chapter, and seven fraternity members.
I questioned how best to address this case in all of its ugliness and controversy. Let me suggest now that today's blog will not wrap up with any nice, neat point. The reality is that women have long not been believed when victimized by sexual abuse. That history matters, and it should make us especially sensitive to women who come forward with allegations of sexual violence. At the same time, gender does not dictate truth. We have all unfortunately known both men and women who lie. It’s thus important to look at each case carefully, be sensitive to the victim, and, as much as possible, not see every case through the lens of our own experience. The few who lie do a grave injustice to the majority who don’t. We need to be honest—and not let the ugliness of a case, or the resulting rage, skew our objectivity.
In keeping with said thinking, as we continue to process what happened at Cornell, the most insightful analysis I have thus far read comes from Hanna Stotland, an experienced crisis management educational consultant. She shared the following on Slate:
It is a horrible story. It’s obvious why it has gotten so much attention. The sordid elements alleged—gang rape, ketamine use, the Snapchat—paint a disturbing picture of life on campus for women, while the perceived failure of a university to properly protect its students and the failure of the police to adequately adjudicate crimes of sexual violence feel all too familiar…
Understanding what went wrong at Cornell requires us all to look at this case with nuance even in the midst of justified panic and rage. Rape is real. The allegations in the civil suit, not to mention the Snapchat, are loathsome. Many rapes go unreported, and getting convictions is no easy matter. Lots of observers hear sickening echoes of their own experiences, or their daughters’, reflected in this story. I understand the reaction: If someone feels like they are watching a house burn down with their kids inside, they want the person who lit the match to be found and punished, as quickly and dramatically as possible. They’re not in the right headspace to contemplate societal solutions to the problem of arson.
Yet, that’s what the moment demands. Even though it feels like we have witnessed something repulsive—something that provokes memories and fears for many women—we have not yet seen the evidence that can actually confirm or disprove the allegations that are floating around, some of which even exceed the claims in the lawsuit. It matters that no civil jury has yet found that any defendant harmed Jane Doe. Hateful chats are not proof of violent rape. We have plenty of time to condemn the defendants when and if we get confirmed facts about what each one did, but there is still a lot we don’t know. I want to be clear that if the facts lead the men to be found civilly or criminally responsible, they should be punished for what they did, as they were in Title IX proceedings already. Right now, we are not there yet.
Many people are taken completely aback by some of the disturbing details of this case. As someone who lives in this space, I want to specifically underline something: This story doesn’t happen without substance abuse. The case is an extreme outlier in terms of alleged severity; I’ve not encountered another case in my career involving ketamine, or with four or more alleged assailants over the course of multiple hours… But the case is par for the course in the sense that everyone on both sides of the allegations was abusing substances, which is a factor in nearly every case I’ve worked on. Doe says she took nine shots of vodka in her own sorority house before heading out for the evening. Meanwhile, according to Doe, every defendant took ketamine, and she did as well. In her statement to police, she said that one of her first two sex partners could not stay awake during sex, and she woke him several times to see if he needed care, and the other was dry-heaving immediately afterward. According to the New York Times’ summary of the men’s statements during the Title IX process, they agree that they were drunk and high on marijuana to the point of vomiting at the time of the encounter…
More details are most likely to come, but I can’t say it enough; this is an ugly, awful story for multiple reasons. I simply pray for truth and justice, knowing I can’t determine it from here.
Soberly…
AR
