The Shame of Cornell University

I’m still shaking my head in disgust at the news that came from Cornell University.

Follow along with me on this. And trust me, this is disgusting.

Apparently two years ago, a female student at Cornell University was at a party at a Cornell fraternity, Chi Phi. Prior to arriving, she had consumed some alcohol at her sorority, and would later arrive at Chi Phi looking for one of her friends. At Chi Phi, she alleges that she received more alcohol, and possibly a different substance – possibly ketamine.

Whatever she drank, whether it was alcohol or ketamine or some other beverage, caused her to pass out.

At this point, it is alleged that a SnapChat message went out to various Chi Phi members on campus, suggesting that there was “free pussy” at the frat house. With that notice, several Chi Phi members took the girl upstairs to a room in the fraternity house, and gang-raped her for the next four hours.

It is later said that the woman only found out about what happened because one of the frat members – who had been asleep at the time of the attack and did not initially see the SnapChat messages – screen-shotted the messages and sent them to her.

The eventual result of this case – two students were expelled, while five others were ordered to write a letter of apology to the victim. The school later barred the Chi Phi fraternity from activities on campus and closed the house.

That was it. A woman gets drugged and assaulted, and nobody goes to jail for rape? And the university’s most severe option is to expel two students and make the other five – some of whom are still students on campus – write apology essays?

Bullshit.

I hate this. I hate that when I was a student in college, way back in ancient times, I could see three fraternities from my senior dorm room – and on Sunday mornings, I could see girls participating in the “walk of shame” as they left the frat houses from the previous night’s parties. I remember when the state drinking age was 18, and the beer trucks arrived on the campus quadrangle and red Solo cups were handed out like playing cards to anyone who wanted them.

And I also remember one of my female friends on campus who started as a vibrant and energetic undergrad, and then after one day in her freshman year she would completely avoid walking past one of the fraternity houses. I would find out later that she had been sexually assaulted by someone at a frat party, but she was too scared to tell anybody lest she be branded a slut or a tease or that “she was asking for it by going to the frat party house in the first place, what did she expect would happen?”

I’m ashamed that those events occurred in the 1980’s, and I’m sickened at what happened at Cornell in 2024.

There’s now a new call to reopen the 2024 investigation and find out what happened – and why the “Cornell Seven” students received the equivalent of slaps on the wrist for something that, in the real world, would have resulted in jail time.

This CNN report details what we currently know about the incident and the aftermath. Link is here.

A statement from the Tompkins County District Attorney is here at this link.

And this link from the Ithaca Voice newspaper.

Ugh.

This is one of those times when I hate people. And I hate what people can do to other people.