I have written a lot about Cornell University in recent years. In my opinion, the school has a lot of problems, mostly related to issues of left-wing activism and anti-Semitism. Currently, it is embroiled in what is arguably its biggest and most serious controversy, an accusation of a gang rape that allegedly occurred in a fraternity house back in 2024.
What seemingly everyone agrees on is that there was a party at a fraternity house in which many people were drunk and high on drugs. One young woman, identified as Jane Doe, either was raped or had consensual sex with as many as 7 young men. At this point, there are many different versions, and the details are very lurid. According to one version, the woman gave campus police a statement days after the event in which she stated that everything was consensual, at which point, the case was closed. She is now claiming rape.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul has appointed New York Attorney General Letitia James to head a new investigation. James, of course, is a controversial figure in her own right due to her legal pursuit of Donald Trump.
The Cornell Campus newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun, is all over the story and has named the 7 men in question.
I am going to stop with the sordid details of the case here because I have no idea what the facts are. Let me just say this because I have very strong feelings on this subject. It goes without saying that this young woman has suffered terrible ridicule at Cornell since that night in 2024, and I sympathize with her.
At this point, it is crucial that the truth come out. If this woman was raped, then justice must be served, and whoever committed the act must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. If she was intoxicated and made a very bad mistake by consenting, shame on the young men for taking advantage of an intoxicated woman, even if they themselves were intoxicated, but they should not be prosecuted for rape.
This, of course, even in the best-case scenario, is a bad reflection on Greek life on campus. This has been going on for many years in fraternity and sorority houses, and it is obvious they are poorly supervised. After I retired from the DEA in 1995, I taught a couple of drug courses at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale, Virginia, and one required aspect of the course I had to cover was alcohol, which is also a drug. The reason was clear even though that school had no fraternity or sorority houses. Binge drinking was and is the biggest drug problem in our universities, and that directly leads to incidents like what happened at Cornell.
In closing, here is a teaching point that I hope Cornell learns and imparts to its students, and especially its young men. When you see a young woman who is intoxicated and in a vulnerable position like Jane Doe, it is your moral responsibility to get that woman to a safe place and not take advantage of her.
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