This week, the story of the Cornell 7 has blown up in the news and on social media when Jane Doe filed a civil suit against Cornell University and seven young men, alleging they gang raped her during a drug and alcohol fueled night in their fraternity house in 2024.
I’m going to say this first- I believe her. I believe these young men took advantage of her state. I believe that even if the interlude began as consensual, it did not remain that way, given her level of intoxication. I believe she was victimized by a group of young men who showed zero consideration for her wellbeing, engaging only in their perversion. What they did to her was abhorrent and they should be held accountable for it. I, in no way, blame her.
And now, what I will say will undoubtedly tick some people off, but here goes.
Convicting these men on social media and in the news with no due process does not bring her justice.
In text messages that have come out after the event, we see a progression for her from trying to play it off to calling rape. I have heard commentary saying she had personal responsibility to not be in that situation. I have heard questions about her claims because of these text messages.
She was with friends that night. She trusted them. She “liked” one of those boys. The nature of trauma is that you reframe the narrative into something more palatable than calling yourself a victim. You try to justify the actions of the person who should have protected you. As your brain is able to better process the events, you are able to see them as they truly are.
I believe that is what happened for her.
So, yes, I do believe she was raped. And I want justice for her.
The problem with this particular case is that New York law, as in 18 other states, only classifies incapacity as lack of consciousness. Her statement specifies that she never reached that point. Under that law, a charge of rape must show either force or incapacity. Because she was conscious the entire time and, by her own admission, was not forcefully taken, the law does not allow for a charge of rape.
Let me say loudly here, that law needs to be rethought.
But. . . we cannot fix the law and then retroactively go back to make it work in this case. That is not how our system of justice works. But that is exactly what they are trying to do here because of the questions arising in the investigation from the beginning.
The initial investigation was conducted by Cornell’s campus police which does not have the expertise for investigations of this nature. There was a subsequent Title IX hearing where all of these boys received sanctions for their actions, two of them being expelled from the school.
The statements were all turned over to the District Attorney who then interviewed her over the course of two days. He has publicly said that he believed her but, based on her statements, he could not bring rape charges under the restrictions of NY law. He has come out now and said that he only learned this week about the Snapchat messages where it was advertised to the fraternity members that there was “free pussy”, among other absolutely horrific statements. In addition, he was not given the longer statement from her that was provided to the campus police. He has said that if all of it had been turned over to him, his decision likely would have been different.
So my question is this- why did the university’s investigator withhold evidence that would have upheld her accusation of rape?
So, now, two years later, we have a young woman who is living with the shame of this event, having her actions and judgement questioned. She never finished school and has been marked by her trauma. We have these boys who are being publicly lynched with no due process.
And no one wins.
Rape is the only charge where the accusation becomes the proof and the evidence comes later. The Duke Lacrosse team was destroyed because of an accusation that proved to be false. In that case, the DA was ultimately disbarred for withholding evidence that exonerated them. The fraternity at the University of Virginia that was accused of gang rape in a Rolling Stone article was also exonerated when the allegations were proven to be false.
It is these rushes to judgement that diminish every accusation and call into question the validity of every woman who is, in fact, a victim. We cannot do such things and still say we are protecting our women and girls. We must allow the appropriate legal process to proceed. And if the laws are written in such a way that they allow for a loophole in where consent lies, then fix the laws.
And now, as a mother of a son, I’m going to speak to the other boy moms. Show some backbone and teach your boys that actions such as what these boys engaged in are not only wrong, they are absolutely disgusting. Teach your boys to stop thinking with their penises and treat women with respect. Moms, I hope you are utterly ashamed by what your sons did in that house and that you have communicated that to them in the fiercest way possible.
You created them. You share the responsibility in what they have become.
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