Gang rape at Cornell Uni + If car theft was treated like rape...

[Toffeefudgecaramel]

In the US they have university police who investigate crimes. In the case of this gang rape in a fraternity house, very serious allegations were only investigated internally, and punishments handed down included "writing essays".
It seems that the actual police only became involved much later.
In the UK, universities are under pressure to deal with incidents of sexual assault "in-house", but arguably they should only be handled by experts within the criminal justice system.

Facebook

Details emerge in case of former Cornell student alleging gang rape by fraternity members - CBS News

It's no different from the police abdication of responsibility for crimes that happen within schools over here. No adult would put up with being assaulted, terrorised and sexually abused - but kids are expected to do so routinely. We need a wholesale change about how we deal with these crimes - right across age ranges.

i’ve been listening to a podcast about a girl missing years ago (Kristin Smart) and it was the poor handling of the case by the campus police that jeopardised finding her killer sooner.

in fact, it was the podcaster that helped solve the case decades later.

Punishment for r**e is writing an essay?

Sorry?

They were required to write essays. Not hyperbole. That was it. They didn't even get kicked out, let alone brought to justice. They gang raped her and then advertised her for further rape to 50 more men. It is sickening.

Apparently a couple were expelled and some more were suspended for a couple of semesters.
This is a great example of why rape (and sexual assault) shouldn't be handled in-house. 1) universities don't have the expertise (eg dna testing), and 2) they're not able give proportionate punishments.

I posted this on the other Cornell thread (that thread had more of ‘an agenda’). The article indicates a longstanding problem at the university.

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2026/09/29/cornell-sexual-assault-rape-expelled-data-exclusive/92007157007/

I haven't seen anything other than widespread condemnation of how the men and the university handled the appauling assualt, especially with the evidence available.

I recently finished the book "Know My Name" by Chanel Miller, and I highly recommend it as compulsory reading for all young men going to college, especially in the US.

There is a very, very clear reason why the man who attacked Chanel did it, and we need to help young men feel comfortable pushing back on the harmful narratives they are provided as kids.

I'm so done with all males, I really am. They are all walking red flags.

Wonder if dollars had anything to do with the outcome ie rich parents.
Should've been jail sentences all round.

I would like to know if any money has passed between the men and Cornell?

also why was this not handled by the police? Rape is clearly beyond the University Police.

Bloody outrageous! So basically rapists have free rein while at college with only minor sanctions, expulsion or suspension if anything. No criminal record, no prison time, no suspended sentence, no community pay back, no tagging/electronic monitoring.

I don’t understand why any incidents aren’t automatically reported to the actual police. Rape is not some sort of civil matter or student dispute, it’s supposed to be an actual crime.

I hope that young woman eviscerates Cornell, what she went was subjected to was horrific, truly fucking war crime shit. 7 hours of rape, I just couldn’t believe this wasn’t automatically a massive deal.

This is the first time I’ve supported cancel culture, every single perpetrator has their face all over the internet and now every member of that fraternity who didn’t report is going to be facing questions as well.

US military also don't involve police in crimes of sexual violence https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jun/26/male-jury-woman-strangled-by-us-pilot-britain-airbase-trial

The pattern is male-centred systems protecting each other and themselves.

@Bringemout "7 hours of rape, I just couldn’t believe this wasn’t automatically a massive deal."

Rape and porn culture are so intrinsic to society though that, from what I've read about this case, the young women involved's initial statement suggested she thought it was all fun sex because she liked one of the men.

Obviously the adults in authority should have been able to identify that 7 men and 1 woman plus the 40 or so others in the group chat meant there was an inherent power imbalance, but attitudes and discourse around sex & porn are so muddled that many people would take it at face value.

It's like how lots of people think Bonnie Blue is knowing and empowered etc without having any critical capacity to see gang bangs and all of that shite being representative of deeply fucking entrenched power dynamics. Come on!

I do wonder as well, if because she was drugged the experience at the time may have felt like something else, plus taking back power by claiming you were ok with it. I’ve been drunk and sexually assualted before and it was only a little while later that it fully sunk in.

Whole thing is fucking miserable, I honestly wish we could just start executing men who do this shit.

I know this is about an American university but many British universities seem to have have a similar approach to dealing with sexual misconduct

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49421735

In the UK, the young women could involve the police, but often choose not to. That's understandable, but universities are not best placed to deal with such serious crimes. And of course the men then end up with no criminal record and are not placed on the sexual offenders' register, monitored by the probation service, etc.

Obviously the police should be informed ASAP, but the problem is, rapes are often not prosecuted, and if they are it often takes months or years to come to court. The university needs to take action in the interim: you can't have rapists running free on campus. The disadvantage is they can't do much to punish, the advantage is university discipline doesn't need the same standard of evidence as a criminal prosecution.

Obviously the appropriate punishment is generally expulsion, or perhaps some kind of restrictions on where the student can go if the case is less clear-cut. Essays aren't enough. But kick a rapist out of uni and you'll still get people saying you've "ruined his life" as if people don't leave university early all the time for all sorts of reasons and still have OK lives.

Definitely possible. When I was 20 I honestly thought I was having empowering sexual experiences (all consensual). Took 15 years for it to finally sink in my sexual pleasure didn't factor in most of them all.

@ApplebyArrows Yes, the university is able to make its decision to expel the offending student based on the balance of probabilities, rather than "beyond reasonable doubt".
I think there is a legitimate argument that in a serious case, a university should not be expected to take on the case where the complaining student is not prepared to involve the police. The police have expert staff and powers that universities obviously can't match.

The case reminds me of the Ched Evans case over a decade ago. I thought this was a good piece from Meghan Murphy. She’s not saying this wasn’t criminal, she’s saying that there’s a problem with how people think about sex.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-question-nobody-wants-to-ask-about-the-cornell-seven

I have an unrelated question, one which I haven't seen raised elsewhere. If Jane Doe is now 20, she must have been 18 when this happened. AFAIK there is no US State where drinking is legal before 21. I wonder if the University are liable for allowing underage drinking on their premises.

This exactly why I’ve told my DD to go directly to the police. The real police. Bypass the university completely.

That’s why the sorority where she was pre-drinking and the bar where she was drinking are also listed as defendants in her lawsuit.

To add further stickiness to this case is New York State law on consent. In New York, if you get drugged against your will, you cannot give legal consent. However, if you intoxicate yourself with alcohol or drugs, you CAN legally consent to sex (which is outdated by decades). So the fact that she got drunk by her own free will earlier in the evening will be doing some serious heavy lifting in this case, unfortunately.