“Seven men drugged and gang-raped a 20-year-old woman.” The verdict in the Cornell rape case was handed down by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who joined others in declaring guilty the Cornell student accused of raping a classmate.
Note that no witnesses testified publicly under oath, and no charges were brought. Now, however, those figures and the media, who are never late for mob justice, have collectively declared guilty.
Ocasio-Cortez declared, “I want to be clear that a culture of rape, sexual assault and pedophilia is protected at elite institutions across America, including Cornell University. It has to stop.”
We’ve been here before. Twenty years ago, Duke University students were accused of gang-raping a stripper at a campus party. Durham District Attorney Michael B. Nifong pandered to the media’s portrayal of the students as the embodiment of America’s racist rape culture, and the media quickly promoted him.
The problem is that, from the outset, the facts do not match the accusations and there is a complete lack of forensic evidence to support this claim. Crystal Mangum later admitted she lied.
Nifong was disbarred, while Mangum remained indicted for lying to the students and later went to jail on murder charges.
All the politicians and pundits who declared Duke students guilty just shrugged and moved on to the next scandal, demanding immediate and uninformed judgment.
Just as the conflicting testimony in the Cornell case does not mean there was no rape. In fact, in my opinion, this is a stronger case than Duke’s. However, there are good reasons to suspend judgment until we know more.
Most of what we know comes from a 101-page civil lawsuit filed by the Department of Energy against Cornell University, fraternity-related entities, seven individual defendants, and other defendants.
The alleged rape occurred on the night of October 19, 2024. Doe admitted that she drank heavily at a sorority house and then, even though she was underage, drank more at several bars before meeting friends at Chi Phi sorority house around 11 p.m. It was there, she claimed, that she was drugged and gang-raped.
Snapchat messages from fraternity brothers after 1am are disgusting and scary. The fraternity brothers announced “free” sex with a woman upstairs, and one of them later asked, “Is the store still open?”
However, the case also includes counter-statements from the alleged victim herself, including suggesting that sex with the first pair of men was consensual.
Friends recalled that Doe later laughed about the incident and said, “Oh my god, isn’t this crazy?” (Notably, some also added that they believed Doe was still traumatized by the experience and hadn’t fully processed it).
She also later told the sorority “big sisters,” “You may have heard some rumors about me, and unfortunately they are true.”
On October 22 and 23, Doe exchanged messages with one of the men, one of whom expressed regret at “the way things went.” Both said their memories of what happened were blurred because they were drunk.
However, she told him “everything sexual is illegal.” She reportedly added that she enjoyed being with him and another man and wanted to come over and smoke more, “but wanted to keep the extra half a billion men and ketamine out of the equation.”
On October 22, Doe did go to Cornell Health Center and was diagnosed with a urinary tract infection and tested positive for sexually transmitted diseases.
According to reports, on October 28, Doe wanted to go to her fraternity’s Halloween party, and her fraternity friends welcomed her because “Chi Phi is your home and you are welcome here.” She responded: “Thank you, I really appreciate it… I will bring cigarettes tomorrow.”
Later, when the fraternity president contacted her to rescind her invitation, she angrily responded to her friend, “I knew this was going to happen. Women get the short end of the stick. You’re not my friends. You’re all covering your asses.”
On November 7, Doe did seek a rape kit test (which was not used after all this time). The next day, she reported the rape to the Cornell University Police Department.
Cornell then moved quickly to suspend Chi Phi’s Xi Chapter and temporarily suspend seven men later named in her civil lawsuit.
In later accounts, Doe admitted to drinking and taking drugs. She also reportedly told investigators that she was satisfied with the initial sex act, adding, “Yeah, as much as I could because I was drunk again when I got there…but I’m very happy with it all.” However, she also said, “I can say with 100 percent confidence that I was raped.”
Legally speaking, extreme intoxication and drug use undermine the claim of consent. While she admits her memory is “very hazy,” it’s hard to imagine anyone believing a student like her could give informed consent.
However, there are clear issues with the case that may have led to a decision not to pursue criminal charges or criminal transfer.
In New York, a threshold question would focus on her voluntary overdose of alcohol. As in other states, a mentally incapacitated person cannot legally consent to sex, but there is an exception for those who voluntarily drink alcohol until they become incapacitated.
About 20 states have the same exception—the plaintiff must prove that her incapacity due to poisoning was caused involuntarily by being drugged or poisoned without her knowledge or consent.
Facing prosecutors who had previously declined to charge (but were reopening the case), Governor Hochul denounced the university and pandered to her supporters. She promised her own prosecutor.
Then she picked a prosecutor in the Duke case who had a greater reputation than Nifong for putting politics over prosecutorial integrity: Attorney General Letitia James.
James was elected on a promise to weaponize the legal system against President Donald Trump and pledged that she would prosecute Trump without specifying any crimes. She is considered one of the most political prosecutors in the country, using her office to go after right-wing groups and individuals. Former staffers recently accused her of turning them into “Tish’s personal lawyers… targeting her political opponents.”
Hochul’s appointment of James maximizes the chances of criminal charges in the case. James has always followed the policy of the Queen of Hearts in “Alice in Wonderland”: “sentence first, sentence later.”
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times bestselling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”