Fraternities foster rape culture
Bruno Shapiro
The boot of rape culture stomps on the face of American liberty. Fraternity culture and the social and legal systems that prioritize the reputations of privileged men above the safety and dignity of women foster rape culture by frightening victims out of getting help, facilitating an unsafe environment and encouraging young men to be complacent to injustice.
On Sept. 16, a plaintiff identified as Jane Doe filed a civil lawsuit alleging she was brutalized and gang-raped by multiple members of Cornell University’s Chi Phi fraternity for seven consecutive hours after pressuring her to use high doses of ketamine in 2024. Cornell failed to take her reports seriously, revealing disturbing truths about fraternity culture and greedy private universities.
The seven alleged rapists have been referred to as the “Cornell 7,” but it is ridiculous to make a serious alleged gang-rape sound so euphemistic. Text messages between Jane Doe and her friend reveal that she initially consented to a sexual activity; she did not consent to a group chat of 57 men being invited to rape her while deeply sedated for seven hours. Serious allegations deserve to be treated with sensitivity and respect. I am appalled to see the internet incells denounce and degrade an anonymous young woman for fighting for justice.
Fraternities at American universities breed obedient, wealthy men into compliant secret-keepers. Recently, a video of cops finding 56 shirtless young men blindfolded in a grimy basement during a frat hazing ritual in Iowa went viral. Zero of the 56 men answered the cops’ questions, just as zero of the 57 men in the group chat with evidence of Jane Doe’s rape reported it to the school or the police.
Many debate, “Do they really deserve to have their lives ruined over one incident?” Yes, absolutely. Whether it be jail time or other repercussions, assuming reports are true, the assaulters must understand the weight of their godless crimes against humanity.
If fraternities were all-Black, they would be called gangs, and hazings would be called gang violence. In 1932, the Scottsboro boys, Black boys ages 12-19, were accused of raping two young women on a train in Alabama. Despite no evidence, eight of them were originally given the death sentence and they all faced decades-long prison sentences. In 2024, Leonard Mack, a Black man, was exonerated after 47 years in prison at 72-years-old for an alleged sexual assault, when DNA tests proved him innocent. A Black man faces cruel punishments without any evidence against him, but these seven frat bros walk unscuffed with evidence of secondary witnesses and group chats that support Jane Doe’s allegations. Jane Doe v. Cornell University reflects the class system that upholds wealthy, privileged men and neglects the liberties of the minority.
As Cornell has been under fire for not taking the case seriously, national debates and protests prompted Cornell to ban all fraternity parties and conduct a Title IX investigation, showing that speaking out can enact change.
I call on young men like myself to speak with female friends and let them know that you are a safe space. We must also call out our friends and peers when they say or act inappropriately. There is no such thing as a funny rape joke. It is far more honorable for a man to speak out against injustice in the name of protecting women than to cowardly laugh along, thus encouraging and reinforcing dangerous patriarchal norms.
Current consent laws are misleading
Camille Chase
I find it hard to believe that consent relies strictly on a patchwork of statutes across a nation that values sovereignty and freedom. Justice should not be a geographical privilege, and with no legal standard, the lines of consent begin to blur. The most recent Cornell rape case made me realize how little information and acknowledgment of how consent should be handled is out there. I have always just assumed that if you drink, you can’t consent, simple as that.
The Cornell case, in a strange way, brought me back to the civil lawsuit we covered in June of 2026 when two former Westlake High students filed lawsuits against the Conejo Valley Unified School District and administrators, alleging on-campus sexual assault by a fellow student and alleged failure by staff to adequately handle reports. Now, a similar situation: Jane Doe alleging on-campus sexual assault and failure by academic leaders to adequately administer a deserved consequence.
These cases represent a larger, systemic problem. It is scary to think that nineteen states have rape or sexual assault laws that consider intoxicated victims to be mentally incapacitated only if they become drunk or drugged without their knowledge. In New York, the distinction between voluntary and involuntary intoxication has become a central issue in the Cornell case. If consent is foundational to sexual autonomy, its legal definition deserves consistent treatment across state lines, and it is ridiculous to me that there isn’t a general consensus of what consent is and how it is treated in court. It’s really not a technical disagreement between legislators either; it is a question of whether our laws adequately recognize and protect bodily autonomy of all people.
Jane Doe’s experience, like many women and men, is not about whether or not she was in the “right” or “wrong,” or if she did consent or didn’t according to the DA report, but instead is about how her situation was handled. Although Cornell conducted a Title IX investigation that resulted in disciplinary action, the criminal investigation initially did not proceed to prosecution in ..and was just recently reopened in 2026. According to New York law, Jane Doe is essentially unworthy as a victim.
States need to review their existing laws for the protection of all people and their bodily autonomy. Consent definitions should be adopted under clear statutory standards, and it’s not hard to do. Amanda Ngyuen founded the civil rights organization Rise in 2014 after experiencing sexual assault and discovering that rape evidence could be destroyed before testing. Ngyuen drafted the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Rights Act, which passed unanimously in the United States Congress and later at the United Nations. Gaps in the system can be solved through collective work. Independent task forces can be built involving stakeholders, defense attorneys, and survivors to assess the state-by-state laws and recommend reforms.
No new law or single statutory standard of what consent means can erase the damage and harm caused by sexual assault. But that is not an excuse to leave important questions of consent subject to inconsistent protections. If bodily autonomy is a right, its protection should not depend on whether someone lives in one state rather than another, and that goes for all forms of personal sovereignty. We should be asking not only whether our laws can prosecute sexual assault, but whether they recognize incapacity fairly and hold institutions accountable when they fall short.
Conclusion:
As we explore the Jane Doe v. Cornell University case, state-by-state consent laws and the expansive history and progression of sexual violence in the US, we call upon our generation to advocate for social and political reform to make America safer place for all.
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