I do not literally mean that every hot take I’ve seen about the recently revived 2024 Cornell rape allegation is terrible. Zachary Faria is correct that Democrats are accepting the accuser’s newly filed lawsuit far too credulously, without vetting Jane Doe’s claims, which would be galling if true. Defense attorney Andrew Fleischman is also right that Doe’s original statement, as summarized by the police, does not describe conduct that meets the stringent standards for criminal rape under New York law.
But I insist that everyone calm the hell down about this case and wait for more information because the drip-drip-drip of leaks and quotations makes clear that we do not have the full story.
The 2024 police summary of Doe’s statement is just that: a police summary. If it conveys the totality of her original statement, then she described a reckless but consensual drug-and-booze-fueled gangbang during which the accused repeatedly heeded her requests.
But CBS News is now reporting that, in the transcript of her original 2024 statement, Doe said that although she was initially “pretty okay with all of this,” she was then “physically hit very, very hard” during the sexual activity and could “say with 100% confidence that I was raped.” This appears to contradict District Attorney Matthew Van Houten’s assertion that Doe’s signed statement described her participation that night as “voluntary, conscious, and consensual.”
The 2026 lawsuit Doe filed against Cornell, the accused men, her former sorority, their fraternity, and the bar that served her that night alleges sexual assault much more explicitly than the police summary of her 2024 statement does. Doe claims that sexual activity began without her consent and that she became completely incapacitated and eventually passed out. Her suit includes a screenshot of a fraternity group chat in which she was advertised as “free p****,” inviting members to “walk in and whip it out.”
Until we can reconcile the extraordinary discrepancies among the police summary, the transcript of her 2024 statement, and the 2026 lawsuit, can everybody hold their horses? Maybe the accused are guilty, maybe she is outright lying, or maybe the truth is murkier. We do not yet know, and anyone crucifying her or them is jumping the gun.
With that said, a few closing thoughts for everyone willing to take a beat before penning their next entry in the gender wars on social media:
- The presumption of innocence may formally apply only in a court of law, but we would be wise to revive a societal standard against unnecessarily naming, doxxing, or otherwise trying to cancel either the accused or their accusers before we have a better understanding of the facts. If you are sharing the names, pictures, or places of employment of any of the Cornell students involved, you should probably knock it off, at least until we know more.
- The doxxing campaign has led not only to the accused men being identified — which, again, I think is terrible given that they have not even been charged with a crime — but also to entirely unrelated people being falsely implicated. That is both stupid and evil.
- It is bad for the rule of law when prosecutors reopen cases in response to public pressure rather than new evidence, as the district attorney said he did here.
- Many drunk college students consent to sex with one other student. Fewer consent to a threesome. I’m going to assume that, outside of OnlyFans, the number of 20-year-olds — even under the influence of alcohol and hard drugs — who would consent to getting gangbanged by a half-dozen frat bros is vanishingly small. It is possible that Doe consented to a threesome but began to object when additional men tried to “walk in and whip it out.” Her lawsuit says she did not consent to the threesome either, which is another discrepancy that needs to be resolved. Consent to one sexual act or partner does not establish consent to others, and consent can be withdrawn at any point during a sexual encounter.
- I need to reiterate this: The real world is not OnlyFans. Just as most men are not rapists, most women are not prostitutes or triple-digit whores. The average woman ages 20 to 24 in the United States has had two to four male sexual partners in her lifetime. More than one-third have had zero or one, and just 13% have had more than 10.
FAILING PUBLIC SCHOOLS NEED HIGHER STANDARDS
- Is it smart to consent to a drunken threesome in a frat house after midnight? Obviously not. Feminists on social media like to ask other women whether they would rather be stuck in a forest with a man or a bear. The lefty conclusion is supposed to be that bears are safer than individual men, who are supposedly predators. While sane people on the internet understand that the overwhelming majority of men are not violent — and that many rapists and abusers are repeat offenders — it is worth reminding women that even the weakest soyboy may be able to physically overpower them. An entire fraternity of drunk, horny young men could theoretically kill you without much effort. You don’t have to choose the bear over one man in a forest, but you should absolutely avoid seven men in a frat house.
- I am a boring married lady now, but once upon a time, I was a USC student who saw quite a bit. Having lived at both ends of the trad-to-rad spectrum, I can easily say that the best sex for women is within a monogamous relationship, ideally a marriage. If not in marriage, it should be with a stable partner you can trust not to hit you or invite his frat brothers to abuse you mid-hookup. I would bet that, of all the things those frat bros were thinking about that night, the absolute last was how to get Doe off. If young women still don’t want to adopt more traditional mores for morality’s sake, let me at least appeal to their self-interest and beg them to be a tad more selfish: Expect better from men. Find someone who, at minimum, treats you like a fellow human being instead of a Fleshlight. Tell men what you want from the start, including what you don’t want. If things go south, yell, scream “no,” and leave if you can. Get to safety and report an assault as soon as you are able.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
