In 2024 Jane Doe was raped at a Cornell frat party. Now in 2026 she's suing Cornell and Chi Phi for the mishandling of her case. No criminal charges were filed, only two of the rapists were expelled, and others "were offered the chance to mitigate conduct by submitting essays."
(CW: descriptions of rape)
Contrast the violent and punitive actions of Cornell towards it's students peacefully protesting for Palestine vs seven violent gang rapists
who not only raped Jane Doe, but forced her to snort ketamine, while advertising the assault in a group chat to invite more participants. Not only were the punishments for the rapists laughably light, the victim claims she only ever talked to the first police officer on the scene, and that the DA's office declined to prosecute without even talking to her.
According to the Cornell Daily Sun's editorial board, this sort of laughably light punishment is a common theme with regards to how the University handles rape specifically and student safety concerns generally. When students are accused of plagiarism the machine works very quickly, but when a woman is gang-raped it took 5 months before a mealy mouthed task force was launched, and 23 months before the public knew anything. Meanwhile, only two of the rapists were expelled, the rest served light suspensions, and none of them have served, or likely will serve a day in jail.
This goes deeper than one horrible act, and the subsequent acts covering it up. The actress Florence Pugh wrote an essay on her instagram decrying the rape and trying to bring awareness to the lawsuit,
only for meta to censor it. Outcry forced a reversal, but unless your individual feeds follow the sorts of people who report on this or if you're still getting your news from legacy news sites like CNN, this might be your first time hearing this. The way a lot of people online get their news is now through sites like Facebook and Instagram and multiple accounts on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook etc are noting that their posts on this crime are being taken down or hidden by "the algorithm". Pugh had enough of a platform to contest that, but less well known posters wont be able to.
Of course, even if "the algorithm" shows a person this news, will they care? As put by Claire Cohen in British vogue
"it's getting harder and harder to believe that they aren't breeding a generation of young men who believe they can inflict unimaginable horror on others without fear of consequence." The group chat that advertised this horror had far more than 7 men in it. 7 men chose to rape Jane Doe. Far more read those messages and did nothing.
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