The Cornell Case: A Rape of a Woman — or of Reason, Society, and the Midterms?

It was 20 years ago now that three Duke University lacrosse players were indicted on rape and other charges after a stripper, Crystal Mangum, claimed she was attacked at a team party. It became a real media cause célèbre, with pseudo-elites everywhere condemning the male undergraduates. But the case blew up in the accusers’ faces. The charges were dropped the next year, in 2007, and the prosecutor was disbarred. And Mangum, who later went to prison for murdering a boyfriend, confessed in 2024 that she fabricated the rape allegations.

Now, today, almost a generation later, we have the “Cornell 7,” a septet of college frat boys accused of rape. It all stems from an incident at the Chi Phi fraternity house on the Cornell University campus in Ithaca, New York, on October 19-20, 2024. And why are we hearing about this only now? Why did the accuser, identified only as “Jane Doe,” wait until just last month to file a civil suit?

And why are Democratic politicians now making this case big news? Well, those are the real questions.

Rape — or Risible Decisions?

In reality, this isn’t just a case of he said-she said, but she said-she said. As commentator Patricia McCarthy noted Saturday:

Why now? … Jane Doe, spent a debauched night in the presence of seven fraternity boys that, according to her own account, was not at all a “gang rape,” but a sex-soaked night of what to most of us might well seem like an X-rated movie, but to the young woman who participated [in] it, was not only consensual, but enjoyable. She texted exactly that to one of the men the next day. Then, days or maybe weeks later, after telling her roommate all about the evening’s entertainment, the roommate thought perhaps she had been raped. She then reported the events of that night to Cornell’s campus police and the powers that be at Cornell, and eventually to the local police and D.A.

Remember here that this would accord with feminist dogma, which has long sought to “loosen” and dumb down rape’s definition. But here’s the text exchange McCarthy references, courtesy of the BBC:

In one message, one of the men appeared to apologise for “how things went down”.

He said his memory was “kinda fuzzy”, and that he and another man felt bad for being too intoxicated to “shut it down and kick people out before it got way out of hand”.

The woman in the text chain replied saying her memory was “super clouded too” and that they were all intoxicated.

She also wrote that “non(e) of the sexual stuff was illegal” and that she liked being with him and another man.

Doe suggested they smoke together again, but leave out “the extra five billion men and ketamine”.

Midterm Machinations?

There’s much to unpack here, but let’s start with election imperatives. Governor Kathy Hochul (D-N.Y.), suggesting the case was possibly mishandled, has appointed disgraced attorney general Letitia James to re-investigate it. But are there ulterior motives?

Note here that midterm turnout may be low because Republicans, and perhaps Democrats, too, are disheartened. Consequently, many theorize, Hochul and James, both up for reelection, may want to mobilize the Democrats’ largest voting bloc: women. Masquerading as a champion for abused women can do this, too.

But the political ambitions transcend the Empire State. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), a federal-branch politician, has also chimed in. She has proclaimed the men guilty, along with abuse-facilitating “elite” institutions such as Cornell. Yet as author Jack Cashill points out at Substack, this narrative ignores that almost all these pseudo-elite institutions

are wholly owned Democratic subsidiaries. At Cornell, for instance, 96 percent of political donations went to Democrats. AOC also ignores the fact that these campuses owe their “culture” to the sexual revolution the Left has proudly nurtured these last 60 years [more on that later].

This is reminiscent of the #MeToo movement, which, it turned out, implicated mostly liberal men in sexual abuse. Also note that the official who declined to prosecute the Cornell 7 was Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten. He’s a Democrat whose county Kamala Harris carried 3-1.

So the Cornell affair should, if anything, help Republicans — but it won’t. Instead, writes Cashill:

For a few weeks, with the help of an enabling media, Hochul and James will seem the avenging angels of woke justice. Democrat talking heads will blame the boys’ behavior on Pedo Don and his “they let you grab them” libertinism. And leftist operatives will fan the campuses with voter registration forms.

Cashill believes the Cornell case will be “the Feminist Waterloo.” What’s for sure is that this would happen only after the midterms. First, though, the young men would be dragged through the mud and the political objective would be achieved. Then the case could be quietly dropped — for lack of evidence.

The Blame Lies …

Right now, though, the blame is being put on, first, the Cornell 7. It’s also placed on Republicans, the Patriarchy™, and men in general. But a couple of good, relevant points were made at American Thinker on Sunday.

The site writes of a double standard. In situations where all parties are grotesquely intoxicated, it points out, only women are treated as “lacking agency.” But men? Hang them if there was inappropriate conduct — they’re somehow responsible even if blitzed senseless. This is part of what I years ago dubbed “The New Chivalry.”

(Note, too: All the Cornell men’s names are public while the woman is kept anonymous.)

The second point was made by a female commenter under the Thinker article. Addressing Doe’s motives, she writes:

This all came to light because she became embarrassed and stunned at how her reputation as a slut had spread around campus. When the same fraternity who hosted the party of the sex romp informed her that she was persona non grata then her whole outlook changed.

From the outside (as a woman) looking in, it appears she doesn’t want to be the only one with a destroyed reputation. She wants to take the men and the fraternity with her.

A second motivation: Doe may be able to make major money now via her civil suit.

Sodom and Gomorrah U

This isn’t, however, to put the blame just on Doe. In fact, while all the Cornell partiers were degenerate, consider enablers — such as academia itself. Per Cashill again:

Cornell, for example, offers a course in “Sexual Desire,” another in “Decadence.” For years, Yale University famously sponsored an event called “Sex Week” that showcased “titillating displays, ‘adult’ film stars, and corporate sponsors of such material.”… In 2006, sponsors distributed 25,000 copies of Sex Week at Yale: The Magazine to all the Ivy League campuses, Cornell included.

Note: Such perverted fare is now standard in “higher” education.

Yet there’s also the wider society. Sexual content and material are everywhere today, in music, media, and movies; in books, on TV, and the internet. Inappropriate sex-ed permeates schooling.

And the messages? “If it feels good, do it. Whatever works for you. Be true to ‘yourself’ (perversion is preference). Explore your identity.” Put simply, children today grow up marinated in sexuality — “normal” and otherwise.

Then there are, to be frank, the parents who don’t protect their children from this corruption. They’ll send their kids to universities knowing that carnality and partying are unofficial course offerings. They know their sons and daughters will occupy coed dorms (most of Cornell’s housing is just that). And they generally know what “partying” too often means: alcohol, drugs, and sex — of perhaps multiplicitous varieties. It’s often accepted as a rite of passage.

When addressing sex ed versus abstinence programs years ago, I pointed something out. To wit:

Many, many decades ago all of society was an “abstinence program.”

Premarital sex and cohabitation — never mind homosexuality — were heavily stigmatized. A degenerate (and no one would flaunt it) would be scorned and ostracized. And entertainment didn’t sell vice as much as virtue.

A woman close to me once summed it up well. “Years ago,” she said, “you knew who the bad girls were.”

“Now you know who the good girls are.”

The Cornell case is simply one of bad boys and a bad girl, and of the bad girls and boys who would hang some of them — motivated by desires far darker than those inspiring any animal-house party.