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The Cornell Rape Case:There's a huge story about an alleged gang rape carried out by fraternity men at Cornell against an undergraduate woman. The New York governor has handed the case to the state's Attorney General, and faulted the local DA for not filing rape charges against the men. The NYT reports, though, that the woman, "Jane Doe" (though she has been identified subsequently, as have her alleged attackers) had a drug-fueled threesome with a number of frat brothers.
Here's the thing: she consented, and believed at first she had consented. The Times, which went through the documents, reports:
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Since the evening that began on Oct. 19, 2024, Jane Doe had recounted the night's events to her roommates without identifying herself as a rape victim. She had exchanged friendly text messages with men she would later accuse of assault. She had heard uncharitable appraisals of herself from undergraduate gossips.
Then she read the words.
"That's the first time I had ever heard the narrative change that I wasn't a ***** and that I was assaulted," Jane Doe told investigators, according to documents from a university review of the accusations obtained by The New York Times.
After the night in question, Jane Doe made the walk of shame:
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Around 11:15 a.m., she said, Jane Doe arrived home, still in her "big boots and small dress" from the night before, according to the roommate. She had consumed ketamine and had sex with multiple men, she told her two roommates. One roommate told investigators that Jane Doe did not use the word "rape" or "assault" yet.
The next day, on Oct. 21, Jane Doe went to her "big sister" a woman designated as a mentor at Cornell's Tri Delta sorority and told her there were rumors circulating that she was a "****." The big sister, a junior at Cornell, told investigators that Jane Doe added with a laugh that "unfortunately they are true."
One of her sex partners texted her:
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"I just wanted to apologize for how things went down the other night," Mr. Newell wrote. He then said that both he and Matthew Ingalls, another of the men she would later accuse of assault, both felt terrible for being too under the influence of drugs and alcohol to "shut it down and kick people out before it got way out of hand."
Jane Doe replied and reassured him.
"At the end of the day non of the sexual stuff was illegal and honestly i really liked being w u and matt," she wrote.
This Jane Doe didn't decided that she had been sexually assaulted until after other girls started saying she was a ****. That, and she was disinvited from a later party at the frat house:
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At Chi Phi, the fraternity was preparing for a Halloween party, and Jane Doe was eager to attend. Text messages included in the investigation show Mr. Ingalls assuring Jane Doe that he and other fraternity members wanted her to be there.
"chi phi is your house and you are welcome here," he wrote, relaying the views of the fraternity's president, who was not among those accused of sexual assault.
"thank u i really appreciate that," Jane Doe responded. "<3 i'll bring my cigs tomorrow"
But then Jane Doe received a phone call from the fraternity's president, according to the text messages.
She was disinvited from the party. It was for her own good, he said.
Jane Doe sent a biting text to Mr. Ingalls.
"I knew this was going to happen," she wrote. "The woman will always get the short end of the stick. Yall aren't my friends. Yall are covering your asses."
So, it seems, she filed charges against the men she willingly gang-banged in an effort to repair her reputation, and to pay them back for disinviting her to the party.
This story is disgusting all the way around. These (no doubt) porn-addled men gang-banged a young woman, the sleazebags. But ---but! --by her own words at the time, she consented, did not consider it rape, and enjoyed it. No wonder the DA didn't file charges. But now these men, sleazy as they may be, face criminal investigation for something all evidence shows the girl wanted to do, and enjoyed.
A few years ago, one of my readers wrote about the crisis her undergraduate son was in -- this, during the #MeToo years. She told me he had had sex with a girl on campus, but did not want to date her. She paid him back by accusing him later --later! --of sexual assault. In the view of my correspondent, this was 100 percent payback to her son for not wanting to be his sex partner's boyfriend. But this was #MeToo time, and everybody believed women, as a matter of course. The young man's life was being ruined on the say-so of this vengeful young woman.
I recall my 1980s college days. There was lots of binge drinking, by men and women, and lots of sex. I participated in it too, and I'm damn sure not proud of it. But we were all drunk. This was a normal Friday and Saturday night at LSU in the 1980s. There were mornings I woke up in bed with a girl, not quite sure how I had gotten there; she felt the same way. We were ashamed, but we were adults, and this was the (bad) choice we made. Were this 30 years later, I would have had to fear being accused of sexual assault. No wonder young men are afraid of young women.
To be very, very clear: I am not defending the acts of these young men. I would be ashamed if one of them were my son, behaving like such a dirtbag. What I am defending, though, is these men against the charge of rape. What they did was morally wrong --but on evidence presented so far, it wasn't rape. We cannot have a legal system if it's up to women to decide whether or not they were raped, after time has passed, and they reached the conclusion that it's to their advantage to rewrite history.
If this goes to criminal trial, I presume they will win (though with female jurors in the post-Lindsay Clancy era, who knows?), but even if they do, the trial will cost them a fortune, and ruin their names. Good luck trying to get a job with that on your record.
Now that Gov. Hochul has decided to politicize this as a feminist, it seems that this has the potential to turn into another Lindsay Clancy case: one that drives another savage wedge between men and women.] -Rod Dreher
