I paused Part I when I hit item #6 and the post began reaching Alizia Tyler-level length. Since then, about 24 hours ago, there have been new revelations, commentary and developments. Picking up where I left off…
7. The New York Times tracked down the detailed filings in the private Title IX proceedings Cornell undertook, including hundreds of pages of emails, text messages, photographs and interviews with “Jane Doe,” her friends and the alleged rapists. This section from the Times report is, I think, definitive (the Times is playing it straight for a change):
At 3:05 a.m. on Oct. 20, 2024, one of Jane Doe’s roommates sent her a text.
“Are you coming home tonight?” she asked.
Four minutes later, Jane Doe texted back that she didn’t know.
The roommate went to sleep, she would tell investigators. When she woke up at 11 a.m., she uploaded a photo of her empty room to Snapchat. “Only I made it back home,” she wrote on the post.
Around 11:15 a.m., she said, Jane Doe arrived home, still in her “big boots and small dress” from the night before, according to the roommate. She had consumed ketamine and had sex with multiple men, she told her two roommates. One roommate told investigators that Jane Doe did not use the word “rape” or “assault” yet.
It seemed like she was “in shock,” her other roommate later told investigators, “not really understanding the gravity of what she was saying.”
The next day, on Oct. 21, Jane Doe went to her “big sister” — a woman designated as a mentor — at Cornell’s Tri Delta sorority and told her there were rumors circulating that she was a “slut.” The big sister, a junior at Cornell, told investigators that Jane Doe added with a laugh that “unfortunately they are true.”
To me, this means that the accuser was not raped and didn’t regard herself as being raped. The editorial comments of her friends indicate biased allies doing their best to frame the event in the manner most favorable to someone they care about. I know, I know: victims of sexual assault blame themselves, are awash in shame, and often take time to “process” what occurred. Or they are persuaded by others to reexamine what happened in a way that avoids accountability, provides a path to financial damages, and that victimizes others. Whichever went on here, I don’t see how a criminal prosecution and conviction is possible unless politics tramples the law—which, as we all know, it often does.
8. The student received a text message from Jonathan Newell, one of the men she would go on to accuse of sexual assault. Note that his name is out there but hers is being withheld by the news media, despite the fact that both, or neither, may be victims. “I just wanted to apologize for how things went down the other night,” Newell wrote. He said that he and Matthew Ingalls, another student she accused of sexual assault, both “felt terrible” that they were too stoned and drunk to “shut it down and kick people out before it got way out of hand.”
“Jane Doe” replied to him, “At the end of the day none of the sexual stuff was illegal and honestly I really liked being with you and Matt.” Not illegal means, “I wasn’t raped, but you know that.”
9. Here, thanks to reader James Flood, who flagged it in the comments to Part I, is feminist Camille Paglia on the incident…
10. Among the messages in the infamous SnapChat exchange among members of the fraternity during the orgy or what ever you want to call it was an alert that there was “free pussy” upstairs. Victory Girls opines in part,
“The female student’s original claims were that sex and drug use at the Chi Phi fraternity house just off of Cornell’s campus was consensual, but now, the story, perceived to be pushed under the table for two years, has risen back to the surface. And now, Jane Doe is telling a different story…his kind of stuff happens every weekend on any given university campus-this is one time that it is actually hitting the news…This case is not just a case of them versus her. This case, and the behavior that surrounds it, are a cry for help…
“Some young people go to college with a specific career goal in mind. Some young people come to a university to explore their identities, to embark upon new horizons and, yes, to belong. …Fraternities and sororities sell the price tag of lifelong friends, leadership opportunities and exclusive networks and experiences on their websites and social media of carefully-curated videos and photos. The guys want the hot girls at the parties and the girls want to go to the parties at the “husband house.”
… Fraternities use slogans like, “building better men”, “friendship, justice and learning”, “transforming lives”, “courage to be more”, to name a few of their catchy and contrived mottos. Sororities talk of philanthropy, “bravery”, “togetherness”, “family”, “values” and “inspiring positive change”…Nothing says “bonding” and “gentlemen” like putting “free pussy” in a group chat. On the flip side of this coin, the young woman who was allegedly raped spent some time drinking at a sorority house on campus before going to the Chi Phi house to meet a guy she was chatting with for an alleged hook-up. How she ended up upstairs with no girlfriends who value “togetherness” is also a big, glaring question. So much for the “values” of the sisterhood.
…Special prosecution or not, this case, and all of the young people involved, is a tragic depiction of a toxic campus community….they all need to take a good, hard look. Universities’ blanket statements that “they take sexual violence seriously” and their willful ignorance of what happens on off-campus houses that still bring money into the University is not enough. Organizations that claim to raise “gentlemen and leaders” and “brave women” do not lend themselves to this type of behavior. A “gentleman” in a formal suit one evening who later participates in a chat (or who is an “innocent” bystander in said chat) advertising “free pussy upstairs” is not a “productive member of society.”…A girl that offers to sniff ketamine off a guy’s junk and have a threesome is a woman with severe insecurities who needs REAL friends who will stop her from the self-destructive behavior that she may later regret and encourage her to have dignity and respect herself. This is not a Cornell problem. Or a college problem. Or a left versus right problem. Or even a legal problem. This is a bigger MORAL problem. This is a right from wrong problem…
I have stated many times here that I believe fraternities are disasters-in-waiting, despite anecdotal evidence that they and sororities have social and socializing value. My college killed its fraternities in the 19th Century. “Morality” is not the issue here, and citing it just fogs the conversation. People are being hurt by this kind of conduct. Ethical people don’t engage in conduct that hurts people. For “Jane Doe” to seek to harm (or benefit from while harming) those who were willing participants in an activity she consented to and encouraged or appeared to consent to and encourage is unethical.
11. The New York Times reports that two of the fraternity members accused by “Jane” were expelled. Another who had already graduated is barred from campus. Two more were suspended. The remaining two men, Scott Norris and Scott Kretzschmar, were ordered not to contact Jane Doe, to study sexual harassment, social media use and bystander intervention, and to write “reflection papers.” Their crime was being part of a group of men who entered the room after reading the Snapchat “free pussy” message. A lawsuit filed by Kretzschmar against Cornell shows that he was not found responsible for sexual assault. Cornell ruled that he had committed a lesser offense of “attempted sexual exploitation.”
Come on.
Watch “Animal House,” for heaven’s sake.
A lawyer for Kretzschmar said in a statement that the discipline his client received showed that he was “never accused of, nor found responsible for, rape. He was not even present during any sexual activity.”
“Jane Doe” has received no academic discipline at all. Ever since the Obama era’s despicable (but typical for that administration) “Dear Colleague” letter, universities have operated from a position of presumed guilt for male students accused of sexual assault and presumed victim status for their accusers. You know. Justice. “Equity.”
There is a lot more, but that’s enough for now.
Do girls ever want to take a walk on the wild side? And aren’t the people who called Jane Doe a slut villains? I thought women having random, unattached sex like guys do was empowering? She might even be elevated to the highly regarded status of sex worker.
I thought that ‘slut’ applied to having sex arbitrary guys specifically just handing yourself out like a used human condom. If you at least restrict who you have sex with based on “being in a relationship” then you are not a slut. Call me surprised that the sororities actually have enough standards to maintain a traditional use of the word ‘slut’.