Two developments in recent days show just how bad things are getting for young adults following Jane Doe’s exceedingly thin claim that she was gang-raped by frat men at Cornell University.
The first one comes in a New York Times article from Saturday featuring some incredible quotes that should offend any self-respecting woman. The story covered the Delta Delta Delta sorority of which Doe was a member and which is named as a defendant in her lawsuit related to her rape claim. “What do we expect to happen?” said a Tri Delta alumna of Texas A&M University identified as JoDee Neil. “We’re not giving them (sorority members) any tools. And we’re sending them off, basically, into a lion’s den.”
This is the type of therapy-speak too many women are growing familiar with in order to deflect and absolve themselves of accountability. What “tools” should a Greek life organization at a university be “giving” to adults that would possibly prevent what allegedly happened at the Chi Phi fraternity house back in 2024? Jane was 20 at the time she says she got drunk, did drugs, and then opted to have a threesome with two frat men. Even her lawsuit filed last month doesn’t claim she was forced, only that she wasn’t capable of taking responsibility for her actions because she got drunk. This was, by her own contemporaneous account, a “gangbang,” not a gang rape.
Another quote comes from Doe’s lawyer, Thomas Giuffra, who I’m half-convinced actually hates his client, given how absurd his arguments made on her behalf are. He told the Times that it was incumbent upon literally anyone but Doe to have ensured she never left the Tri Delta sorority house that night. “Somebody should have said: ‘Hey, no, you’re intoxicated. You’re not, you shouldn’t be going outside. It’s not safe,’” he said. “And that failed.” Doe reportedly said in investigation proceedings after the incident that she hid her intoxication from an authority figure at the sorority house that night. “I didn’t want to tell her I was drunk because she’s a mandated reporter,” she said, according to the Times.
So if she was hiding it, how is anyone supposed to stop her? And if they had tried and she insisted that she be let go to leave the house, then what? A sorority house isn’t a prison. (Though maybe it should be.) The only logical conclusion is that women, at least young ones, can’t be trusted to take care of themselves and therefore shouldn’t be permitted to attend college without a chaperone.
Around the same time that article cursed our nation’s history, a high school football team captain in Santa Rosa, California, was punished for expressing his First Amendment-protected opinion on the Cornell issue. He reportedly posted on social media, “Free the Cornell Seven,” a reference to the seven men Doe has accused of raping her. After some students protested, school officials announced it had taken action against him, though it’s unclear what form of discipline he received. The student was also reportedly excluded from a team dinner.
In other words, for stating his view on a public controversy — a view widely shared by others — a young man was censored and effectively told his opinion doesn’t count. It’s an outrage, and if anyone thinks there’s a crisis in relations between the sexes now, this is the exact type of thing to fuel it.
What should be a cautionary tale about drugs and high-risk behavior in college is instead being used to infantilize young women and villainize young men: Women can’t be expected to take responsibility for themselves and men can’t do anything right.
That destructive message has been pushed for far too long, and when there’s a backlash, everyone will remember the Cornell Seven.
Eddie Scarry is the D.C. columnist at The Federalist and author of "Traitors: The Democrat Party’s Collapse into Anti-American Filth."