What happened?
Last month, a young woman filed a civil lawsuit against Cornell, the seven men that gang raped her in 2024, and their fraternity Chi Phi. It wasn’t until now, two years later, that the ensuing public outrage has pushed the local district attorney, Matthew Van Houten, to reopen the case and pressured New York State Governor Kathy Hochul into ordering an independent investigation.
In October 2024, 20-year-old Jane Doe visited the Chi Pi fraternity house, where she was pressured into drinking high-proof alcohol and taking ketamine, a drug that induces sedation and immobility, and was raped by the first two men. One of the men sent a message to the Chi Phi group chat with 50 men advertising “free pussy upstairs” and encouraging them to participate in the assault, after which five other men joined.
They coerced her into taking more ketamine to the point she couldn’t see straight and was hallucinating, and they continued raping her until 5:45am when she lost consciousness. Much later that morning when she regained consciousness and went back to her room, she discovered bruises from being hit by the men and that she was suffering from a urinary tract infection. When she went to Cornell Health to seek treatment for the UTI, she specifically told the doctor she had contracted it “in a traumatic way,” yet the doctor did not follow up on this with a rape kit nor did they provide a referral to a medical professional trained to deal with rape cases. They “just suggested [she] go to therapy.” Later Jane Doe discovered that the seven men who gang raped her had been bragging to others about how they “had an eightsome with her.”
How Title IX offices enable rape and rape culture
Title IX is a federal civil rights law that claims to protect students from sex-based discrimination and sexual violence. Title IX offices on campuses have historically fallen short on enforcing these protections. Despite studies consistently finding 1 in 5 women students experience sexual assault in college, an investigation by USA TODAY showed from 2014 through 2020 the Title IX offices at the largest public universities in the nation only suspended 1 in every 12,400 enrolled students, and expelled 1 in every 22,900. Another investigation revealed only about 20% of students were expelled from their schools after being found responsible for sexual misconduct. At Cornell, out of over 1,200 sexual violence reports to Title IX from 2018 to 2014, only 0.6% resulted in expulsions.
In the course of investigative interviews and hearings, victims must endure repeatedly recounting the most traumatic events of their lives to multiple different parties, while every effort is made to discredit them and make them question themselves. University Title IX offices tend to issue lenient punishments, driven by fear of possible litigation by the perpetrators. Not unlike the criminal court system, universities’ Title IX offices wear victims down through their lengthy processes, banking on them giving up the fight altogether. This results in victims having to continue to see their abuser on campus, causing disruptions in their education and grades, and sometimes pushing them to drop out of school altogether.
After being questioned and interviewed for hours by Cornell police and Cornell’s Title IX office, Jane Doe’s transcript that spanned 120 pages was condensed to only six pages. Only two of the seven rapists were expelled, while others were suspended and were given the opportunity to write “reflection” essays to receive even more lenient punishments. Tompkins County District Attorney Van Houten based his decision not to press criminal charges on the condensed version of the transcript and did not bother to look at the full transcript or any of the other supporting documents. Facing severe trauma and ostracization, Jane Doe dropped out of Cornell.
When questioned about his decision not file any criminal charges against the seven rapists, Van Houten lied about not being given the full scope of information, and he also cited New York’s “voluntary intoxication loophole.” Van Houten said at a press conference, “Fraternity members who were part of this were morally reprehensible, and it was a disgusting situation. That being said, that’s not the legal standard, and we can’t prosecute someone for a crime because they are morally wrong. They have to be in violation of the penal law.”
Van Houten’s callous sentiment about the gang rape is a clear example of how public officials excuse rape and view sexual violence against women not as a crime but as an “unfortunate” normal occurrence of life.
What is the “rape law” affecting this case? How does this and other laws and processes protect rapists?
Many states have laws that require a high legal burden to prove physical helplessness or that someone clearly refused sex in order to prosecute someone with rape. New York is one of 19 states with a “voluntary intoxication” loophole. In the eyes of the law in each of these states, if you willingly consume alcohol or drugs, you are effectively consenting to sex, even in clear instances of rape. This law not only gives the legal system a way out of pursuing charges in rape cases, but it also provides abusers with a blueprint for how to take advantage of and rape people without consequences, while perpetuating a culture of victim blaming.
Reformers in New York have been fighting to have this law changed for years, and these laws providing legal cover for rapists do need to be eliminated. But reforming this loophole will not affect how rape is treated in the legal system overall, as this law is only part of a greater whole designed to retraumatize survivors and protect rapists at every turn. Each of the other 30 states without “voluntary intoxication” loopholes still provide legal protection for rapists and abusers and systematically fail to prosecute and throw them in prison as punishment. Across the US, 74% of reported rape cases go unsolved. There are hundreds of thousands of rape kits that law enforcement have been kept untested.
At Cornell and other universities around the country, frats are a cesspool
According to a 2025 poll, over 35% of women undergraduates at Cornell University reported “experiencing nonconsensual sexual contact involving physical force, threats of force or incapacitation.” This was an increase from 23% in 2023. But this is not unique to Cornell. At 33 of the nation’s major universities, almost 1 in 4 undergraduate women experienced sexual assault or sexual misconduct. In 2022, Cornell temporarily suspended frat parties after a student was sexually assaulted and four others were drugged with roofies.
Men at elite academic or cultural institutions have status, are set up to be secure for life, and get to act like it is their god-given right to treat women like walking fleshlights and get away with it. Men in fraternities are 300% more likely to rape, and fraternities actively breed camaraderie among their members via the sexual domination and objectification of women.
Frats perpetrate and normalize rape culture. This culture emanates from frats to the campus, and from the campus to our broader society, because of the hierarchical control they have over campus social life. Frats have conditioned countless men to be sexual predators. Beyond the rampant sexual violence, frats are responsible for violent hazing, sometimes resulting in serious injuries and deaths, and drug and alcohol abuse. A Cornell alum who was sexually assaulted during her time there said, “It was normalized to experience violence. It was normalized to worry about being drugged.” These institutions need to be eliminated from college campuses.
The rapists in frats and on campuses go on to hold positions of power in society as politicians, corporate executives, doctors, lawyers, etc. According to a (now removed) webpage from Cornell’s Dean of Students: “Fraternity men represent a very small percentage, only 2% of the male population in the United States. However, that 2% is a very powerful group of individuals. Fraternity men have gone on to hold many of the top positions in our nation, from the business world to the political arena. Approximately 80% of the top executives of Fortune 500 companies are fraternity men. 76% of current United States Senators and Congressmen are fraternity men. 100 of 158 cabinet members since 1900 have been fraternity men. 40 of 47 Supreme Court Justices since 1910 have been fraternity men. All but two United States Presidents since 1825 have been fraternity men.”
While this egregious story is currently making headlines, it is one of the many horror stories of what women and girls face:
- 2012-2016: There were dozens of sexual assaults by players on the Baylor University football team and members of a fraternity with concerted efforts by school officials to conceal them. A former student who sued Baylor described it as a “hunting ground for sexual predators.”
- 2016: After Stanford rapist Brock Turner was convicted, his dad said to a judge: “This is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20-plus years of life.”
- 2025: Kendall Danielle, an LSU student, was raped by a football player who was found responsible under a Title IX investigation and still allowed to return to campus.
- 1 in 3 women victims of rape experienced it for the first time between the ages of 11 and 17
- 1 in 5 women in the US are raped in their lifetime
What is and what isn’t the way out?
We can’t depend on politicians. District attorneys and special prosecutors won’t bring criminal charges, or only do so to further their careers and boost their public image. We can’t be bogged down and distracted by reformism. Title IX itself won’t end rape on campuses because rape culture is deeply embedded in academic institutions.
We can’t be tricked by the false solutions of becoming a “girl boss.” Girl boss culture falsely promises that women can rise above patriarchy by achieving academic and career success, when in reality these academic institutions and workplaces themselves are sites of oppression and sexual violence for women. Achieving individual success doesn’t change the fact that elite institutions consistently protect men from facing any consequences for objectifying and sexually abusing women.
Mounting public pressure works when it delegitimizes these institutions and officials by putting them on the defensive and forcing them to face bad optics and PR crises. This is what forced the Tompkins Country district attorney to reopen the criminal case against the Cornell 7. And this is why Governor Hochul called for the independent investigation of the case.
But we shouldn’t feel appeased that Hochul is seeming to take this seriously. In reality, she is doing damage control of Van Houten’s mess to quell the public outcry, which threatens New York’s image as a progressive state. And this independent investigation cannot be depended on to deliver justice to Jane Doe. Governor Hochul appointed New York Attorney General Letitia James to lead the independent investigation. James has a history of siding against oppressed people, including letting killer cops walk free and ignoring other cases of sexual assault and misconduct.
And there’s still the question: public pressure to what end? Regarding what should happen to the Cornell 7, a Cornell student recently put it best: “They should be in jail, not just expelled.” We need to mount public pressure to get these rapists jailed. Students have come out protesting in huge numbers, rightfully demanding that Cornell expel and revoke degrees of the seven men who raped Jane Doe. Any students facing retaliation from their universities for exposing and protesting sexual assault should be defended. We should also make demands against institutions beyond the university admin, including politicians and law enforcement, who play just as an important role in protecting rapists.
Women are facing increasing instances of rape and other sexual violence on campuses. Coupled with the 2022 ruling that the Constitution does not protect a woman’s right to abortion, and other attacks on women’s and trans rights, it’s clear it’ll take a mass movement of people to contend with patriarchy at a societal level.
Those in power and their supporters will do their best to discredit and threaten us, but it’s because they know that women can be united across all classes as a revolutionary force against patriarchy and this oppressive system.
