What Didn’t Happen at Cornell

Where were the good guys? That’s my question about the Cornell frat rape case. Chivalry—that manly code of honor conservatives are always blaming feminism for destroying—is supposed to protect the defenseless from evildoers and dangers of all kinds. People who worry about a supposed crisis of masculinity—what does it mean to be a man now that male superiority is not automatically assumed in every area of life?—often propose a modern version of chivalry involving protection and service to others.

Fraternities do the same, appealing to the good works they perform, fundraising for charity, tutoring poor children, and so on, while forging strong bonds among members. The mission of Chi Phi, the Cornell frat in question, is “Building Better Men through lifelong friendships, leadership opportunities, and character development.” If gang-raping a drunk girl high on ketamine counts as building better men through lifelong friendships, I guess our future is in good hands.

Where were the good guys? Seven men have been identified as having been participants or in the room during the October 2024 gang rape, some of whom Jane Doe thought were her friends. Snapchat messages advertising “free pussy” went out to all 50-plus members of the chapter, prompting responses like “you can just walk in and whip it out” and the now infamous query “shop still open?” Any one of the seven could have shouted “ENOUGH”; he could have scooped Jane Doe up in his arms and carried her out. Any one of the men who received the Snapchat could have gone to the room and put a stop to it. If that was too much to ask, they could have called the campus police from the safety of their bedroom. No one did.

So often, men bond over the bodies of women, and protect each other if trouble arises. We saw that with Gisele Pelicot, drugged by her husband and raped for years by over 50 men who answered his invitation on a website for men interested in that sort of thing. The men claimed to believe Pelicot was just pretending to be unconscious, or had given permission beforehand, or that her husband’s permission was enough. They showed up in court laughing and smirking. In the Cornell case, fraternity brothers focused on coordinating their stories and on misleading Jane Doe about what had happened. “You’re an amazing person.” wrote Jonathan Newell a day after the event, “and I genuinely hope ur not catching as much heat from this as we r.” Of course! The men were the real victims. Jane Doe reassured him: “if you have any regrets or anything you want to talk about i am always here to talk about it cause that was a lot.” Newell, by the way, was the man who sent the “free pussy” message.

It took Jane Doe a while to understand what had happened, by which time Newell was claiming to have been so intoxicated he’d forgotten most of it. When Jane Doe went to the campus police three weeks after the event, the police minimized what happened, omitting from the summary of her complaint that they forwarded to Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten the fact that Jane Doe claimed to have been raped. That, Van Houten says, is why he saw nothing to charge the frat men with. No one seemed to wonder why, if she didn’t claim rape, she had bothered to go to the police at all.

Where were the good guys? Not in the administration, that’s for sure. Newell and his friend Matthew Ingalls were expelled; two were suspended,; and the rest received lesser punishments, including having to attend workshops and write essays. Two are still at Cornell today. As for Jane Doe, when she requested a tuition refund so that she could go home and heal, she was turned down and had to remain on campus.

Now that Jane Doe is suing the men, Chi Phi, Cornell, and others in civil court, more information is coming out. USA Today reports that from 2018 to 2024, over 1,200 cases of rape, sexual assault, domestic violence, and stalking were reported to the university’s Title IX office. Cornell filed charges in 162 cases; it found against 51 of the accused. In other words in only about 4 percent of cases reported were accusations upheld. Almost all of these led to “minor sanctions”—more essays, I’m guessing. Approximately one perpetrator was expelled per year. What’s going on?

The true purpose of a Title IX office is not to enforce Title IX, as Cornell claims, wrote my old friend Cheyney Ryan, emeritus professor of philosophy and law at the University of Oregon and Oxford, in an e-mail to me. It’s to protect the university. “If the Cornell administration could be viewed as negligent, hence legally liable, then the aim of the Title IX director will be to downplay or ignore the incident so as to shield the administration from legal action. That will be their main goal.” He remembers papers being assigned as punishment for sexual assault when he was at the University of Oregon, too. “This is why when students came to me who’d been assaulted, I took them immediately to a local attorney who specialized in these matters and didn’t bother with the university’s procedures,” he added.

Cornell president Michael Kotlikoff has called the Chi Phi event “deeply disturbing, a defining moment in Cornell’s history.” But it’s just the most flagrant example of sexual violence at Cornell, where 35 percent of undergraduate women—and 8 percent of undergraduate men—say they have been subjected to “nonconsensual sexual contact,” a number that has risen in the last few years. As more and more call for the banning of fraternities, which many studies show are disproportionately involved in sexual assaults, Kotlikoff demurs: Banning frats would drive them underground, making it hard to monitor their activities. Giving how little monitoring goes on as is—Jonathan Newell was an official Chi Phi party safety monitor—it’s hard to see how a ban would make things worse. It would at least be a powerful statement of disapproval of the frat and its members. But why would that happen? Fraternities are backed by powerful, wealthy alumni and parents who are important donors. Fraternity and sorority members are much more likely to give to their college than regular students. Universities don’t want to alienate them.

Where were the good guys? New York State law itself is set up to protect men. The blue, progressive state is one of 19 in which a woman who voluntarily consumes alcohol or drugs cannot claim she is too incapacitated to consent unless she is unconscious. I wrote about this in 2024, when two cops were acquitted of raping a woman so drunk she could barely stand up. It looked then as if the law’s days might be numbered—the State Senate had for several years voted to eliminate the loophole. But Speaker of the Assembly Carl Heastie, a Democrat, refused to bring the measure to the floor. Governor Kathy Hochul is now calling on the state legislature to change the law, but until that happens, ladies, be on notice: If you are intoxicated, you are fair game. That is one reason Jane Doe will have a very hard time should the DA decide to prosecute. How is that right?

It isn’t. But the Cornell rape case isn’t just a matter of law, which rightly has a high standard of proof. It’s a matter of culture too. It would be lovely if debauchery was just lighthearted fun, but what we’re seeing on campus seems more like callous exploitation, fueled by ubiquitous drugs and drink. Consent, which began as a feminist criterion—no means no, yes mean yes—is the only metric. But consent can be manipulated; it can be falsely claimed after the fact; it can be socially compelled, and it can be employed to blame the victim: If she didn’t consent, why was she there? That a person might freely consent to a threesome with friends, as Jane Doe may have done, but not a sevensome with strangers, is too hard for some to wrap their minds around.

Amid an uproar on campus, with students demonstrating and calling for Kotlikoff’s firing and faculty slated to consider a vote of no confidence in the administration in a few weeks, Governor Hochul has named State Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor. Cornell has named Sally Yates, former acting attorney general, to investigate the university’s handling of sexual assault. That’s three women.

Maybe they’ll be the good guys.