The Cornell Rape Lawsuit Is Fueling a Deranged Social Media Mob

The New York Times has shared new details about a 2024 accusation of gang sexual assault at Cornell University; they appear to strengthen District Attorney Matthew Van Houten’s argument that there was not a compelling legal basis to bring charges against seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity.

But try telling that to the social media mob, which is going to absurd lengths to identify and destroy the seven men, who now face a lawsuit from the alleged victim, known only as Jane Doe. They were named in the lawsuit, and their pictures have appeared everywhere in the media. Websites have been formed with the express purpose of naming and shaming them, and The Cornell Daily Sun‘s editorial about the accusations begins by listing them.

It’s not just rogue voices on social media, of course. And it’s not just the accused perpetrators facing a rush to judgment. According to a shocking story in The Free Press, the court charged with serving papers to the parties named in the lawsuit actually served the wrong person: a man with the same name. The family of this falsely maligned person—an active-duty sergeant in the Marine Corps—has been subjected to relentless harassment by internet sleuths who are wrongly convinced they have discovered the address and contact information for an accused rapist.

“My family’s been terrorized, threatened, and harassed,” the mother of this wrongly-identified person told The Free Press. “I am just amazed at the way people behave.”

It’s obviously contemptible to threaten and dox people who have absolutely nothing to do with the lawsuit. But frankly, it’s also wrong to try to destroy the lives of the actual accused persons well before any kind of investigation, civil procedure, or trial. Yet that is precisely what a horde of internet commenters have dedicated their time and attention toward accomplishing.

Judgmental

The details of the October 19, 2024, Cornell fraternity rape accusation—which I have discussed in numerous videos for Rising this week—are as follows: A female sophomore, Jane Doe, went to the Chi Phi fraternity house late one night and engaged in several different threesomes while under the influence of alcohol and ketamine. In her initial recollection of events, she described willingly ingesting the ketamine and agreeing to participate in the threesomes. To the best of her knowledge (which may be incomplete due to alcohol and drugs), they engaged in sexual behavior under the terms that she agreed to—and it ended when she wants it to end. For this reason, Van Houten declined to charge the fraternity brothers: He did not believe she had stated that a crime took place, since mere intoxication does not eliminate consent unless the alcohol and drugs are forced on the victim.

The text messages released by The New York Times suggest that Doe did not initially view the ordeal as a sexual assault. She did not use such terminology to describe what happened to her; on the contrary, she reassured one of the fraternity brothers that “at the end of the day non of the sexual stuff was illegal and honestly i really liked being w u and matt.” However, she disliked that news of the encounter had spread across campus and was sullying her reputation. It was friends and classmates—and her sorority sisters—who disapproved of the encounter and introduced to her the idea that it constituted rape. By October 23, she would “sleep and cry all day” because of the rumors about her, which were “RUINING my life temporarily,” she complained to one of the men she would later accuse of sexual misconduct.

Her most significant change in perspective, according to the documents reviewed by the Times, came after she was disinvited from the fraternity’s Halloween party, which she had still aspired to attend. When one of the subsequently accused men told her she was welcome to come and that the Chi Phi house was her house too, she replied: “thank u i really appreciate that…<3 i’ll bring my cigs tomorrow.” But after that, the fraternity president—who was never accused of wrongdoing—decided it was best for her not to come and rescinded her invitation. A few days after that, she decided to go to the police.

While these text messages are suggestive, they don’t definitively acquit anyone of anything. It’s of course possible that she withdrew consent and was forced to continue, and that she did not immediately process what had happened to her as rape because she was in denial. The language she used when she described the evening to the police may have precluded them from proceeding with criminal charges, but it could still be the case that sexual assault did in fact occur on the night of October 19, 2024. It’s also possible that some of the men are innocent and others are guilty. Perhaps the lawsuit will shed more light on what really happened.

But in the meantime, it is incredibly reckless and unfair for these accused persons to be doxed, harassed, threatened, and fired from their jobs without any opportunity to defend themselves (the men have not even been charged with a crime)—particularly given that the only evidence against them is the perspective of an accuser who has dramatically altered her perspective.

To be clear, this does not mean she is lying or that she’s wrong. It sounds like what happened to her was genuinely traumatizing, and the condemnation and shame she received from the people around her was contemptible. It’s very natural to be sorry about what happened to her—and to want justice for her if a crime was committed. But justice is not an internet mob showing up at the front door of the wrong person.

This Week on Free Media

I have a rant defending libertarianism against the charge that we only care about defending certain vice-related liberties.

Worth Watching

If you’re just going to watch one video about the Cornell case, I would most recommend this discussion between Batya Ungar Sargon and myself.