Beware the Rush to Judgment in the Cornell Rape Case

One might have hoped that the media—and the broader public too—would have learned the lesson that it’s unwise to prejudge a sexual assault dispute, automatically take the side of the victim, and demand the heads of the alleged perpetrators. By now, we possess numerous examples of initial impressions being wildly wrong, including high-profile cases such as Rolling Stone’s retracted 2014 University of Virginia story and accusations against members of the Duke University men’s lacrosse team in 2006.

Cornell University may present another such case.

A seemingly quite disturbing allegation of sexual assault at Cornell has now captured the media’s attention. The details are lurid: A female former student, known as Jane Doe, contends that seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity pressured her to take drugs and alcohol and then gang raped her for hours. She has filed suit against the fraternity brothers, as well as Cornell itself, which she says failed to protect her from being “sexually assaulted and raped by multiple members of the Xi Chapter of the Chi Fraternity.” She is kept anonymous in her lawsuit: The alleged perpetrators, on the other hand, are named.

The accusation has brought the fraternity brothers significant opprobrium, their names and faces appearing everywhere in media. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.) denounced them and Cornell, declaring: “The culture of rape, sexual assault, and pedophilia is protected in elite institutions across the United States and including Cornell University.” The Cornell Daily Sun’s editorial about the suit begins by listing the names of the seven alleged perpetrators. On Bluesky, a mob of angry commenters are doing everything they can to get them fired from their jobs. Many are furious that Cornell did not take the matter more seriously in 2024, when Doe made the accusation; they also cannot understand why the district attorney failed to prosecute.

But the reason for this is actually rather simple: Doe’s initial statement to the police did not accuse the young men of rape or sexual assault.

That’s according to District Attorney Matthew Van Houten, who released a statement elucidating why he had declined to press charges at the time. His statement quotes a document he reviewed: Doe’s sworn statement to Cornell police regarding the events of October 19, 2024. According to Van Houten’s characterization of that document, which he directly quotes repeatedly, Doe unambiguously described what happened to her as entirely consensual, and thus there was no crime to prosecute.

“Jane Doe’s sworn statement in November 2024 did not allege that she was drugged against her will or gang raped,” wrote Van Houten. “On the contrary, Jane Doe’s statement described her participation in drug use and sexual contact as voluntary, conscious and consensual.”

Van Houten quotes Doe at great length: In her own recollection to police days after the encounter, she described a series of sexual encounters with a number of fraternity brothers—including two different threesomes—heavy alcohol use, and the consumption of the drug ketamine. But importantly, by her own initial account, neither the sex nor the alcohol nor the drugs were ever forced on her: Doe herself maintained that she participated willfully. When she said stop, the sexual activity stopped. When they asked to resume it, she allowed it to resume. When she tired out, it ended.

This matters, because according to New York law, mere intoxication is not enough to constitute rape, unless the substances were forced on an unwilling victim. Sunny Hostin, a co-host of The View and former sex crimes prosecutor who is hardly a contrarian right-wing anti-feminist, laid this out quite well in a recent segment, explaining why it would have been very difficult to prosecute the case given Doe’s statement to police.

“The pictures of these young men who have not been charged, have not been adjudicated, are being plastered all over the internet,” said Hostin. “I think people are reporting this story inaccurately. I think they are reporting it unfairly. And while this is something we have to take very seriously, there is no way, according to her statement in 2024, that any prosecutor would have brought this court case.”

Sunny Hostin, a former sex crimes prosecutor, actually defends the Cornell 7. She argues that under New York State law, the girl consented and that the media is “reporting this story inaccurately. I think they’re reporting it unfairly.”
“The pictures of these young men who have… pic.twitter.com/ZbnJpS8G6R

— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) September 29, 2026

Now it’s true that Doe’s lawsuit presents a starkly different picture. While it describes the exact same series of events, Doe now contends that she did not consent to sex and that she was pressured to take ketamine against her will. Given these claims, Van Houten has decided to open a new investigation.

But the mere existence of a lawsuit cannot be taken as evidence that the young men are guilty. It is of course possible that Doe’s initial version of events was wrong, and she is telling the truth when she alleges that they abused her. It is also possible that her unequivocal statement acquitting the fraternity brothers of any wrongdoing was right, and she has subsequently altered her story for some reason. Her lawsuit seeks compensatory and punitive damages.

It is also possible that the police who interviewed her in 2024 miscommunicated her actual sentiments. Releasing her sworn statement in full could shed more light on this.

The new accusations against the fraternity brothers are very serious, and numerous people contend that their actions are morally blameworthy regardless—that it is wrong to give ketamine to a very drunk woman and have group sex with her. But given that the D.A. is reopening the case, the proper question is not a moral one, but a legal one: Was Doe the victim of a crime?

Outside observers and commentators simply don’t have full information about the case, so it’s wildly inappropriate at this juncture to call for any sort of swift retribution against the accused parties.