The Cornell 7 and The “Consent” Trap

I’m probably the last person who should write about morality. I grew up on the Left, after all: a hippie childhood in Topanga Canyon, then coming of age as the first generation after Roe v. Wade as a liberated woman who did whatever I wanted, dressed however I wanted, and always felt free in my mind and heart. I was never someone who would have demanded morality. I didn’t even know what that was.I watched the counterculture revolution of the 1960s and 1970s break free of norms and traditions. Where we’ve ended up is at the Empire’s end: a Caligula-like culture that strictly polices thought, speech, racism, sexism, homophobia, bigotry of any kind, but one that also treats morality and decency as oppressive relics from a patriarchal past.So when a 20-year-old Jane Doe walked into the Chi Phi fraternity at Cornell on October 24, 2024, her only armor was the rule of “consent.” As long as it was okay with her and she said so, anything goes. She agreed to a threesome with two 20-year-olds, but then, when more men flocked to her body like seagulls chasing a bag of chips left on the beach, she was too high or drunk to even know how to get herself out of it.No one knew how to just say this is wrong, this is bad behavior because they don’t live in a culture that believes that — not unless it’s rape. But this wasn’t rape by any legal definition. She consented, then she consented again. Then, she was drowning in a sea of consent, and so were they. In the days, weeks, and months that followed, Jane Doe would absorb the truth about what really happened that night. Shame would follow when she saw her classmates pointing and laughing at her, calling her a slut, saying it was a “gang bang.” If the boys said nothing, she said nothing; no one would know what they did that night, but the boys bragged about it. They betrayed her trust, and she ended up looking bad.The real kicker was being disinvited to that same frat with those same guys. In her mind, she was the one being punished and not the boys.From the New York Times:At Chi Phi, the fraternity was preparing for a Halloween party, and Jane Doe was eager to attend. Text messages included in the investigation show Mr. Ingalls assuring Jane Doe that he and other fraternity members wanted her to be there.“chi phi is your house and you are welcome here,” he wrote, relaying the views of the fraternity’s president, who was not among those accused of sexual assault.“thank u i really appreciate that,” Jane Doe responded. “But then Jane Doe received a phone call from the fraternity’s president, according to the text messages.She was disinvited from the party. It was for her own good, he said.Jane Doe sent a biting text to Mr. Ingalls.“I knew this was going to happen,” she wrote. “The woman will always get the short end of the stick. Yall aren’t my friends. Yall are covering your asses.”That’s when the anger and resentment set in, and eventually, it would fester until she decided she needed to get something back, something she lost in her efforts to protect the boys and not herself. Whether she knew it or not, she was walking around with a loaded gun and a trigger she could pull at any time. Two years later, she did just that, and the righteous, delusional, fanatical mob ignited into a frenzy. Even AOC got into the mix, condemning and convicting the boys, putting an image in everyone’s head about what happened that night.Everything that came next has been a horror show. The Cornell newspaper released the boys' names, knowing that in modern-day America there can be no such thing as due process. If she was accusing them of rape, gang rape, then they were guilty. The University newspaper, the Cornell Sun, wrote an op-ed naming the boys:We refuse for this victim to be reduced to just another story. Cornell has failed to protect its students. Cornell has failed to address the growing issue of sexual assault on campus with its pathetic task force. Cornell has failed the student allegedly raped by those seven men at Chi Phi in October 2024. Cornell has failed her. Cornell has failed us.To Matthew Ingalls, Jonathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris and Scott Kretzschmar: We know who you are and we refuse to let you benefit from this University’s concealment.Two websites cropped up to name and shame the boys. One is Cornellseven.com, run and operated by activist Aaron B:And the oth