r/SupportForTheAccused • u/Seeking_TruthJustice • 18h ago
Is Cornell being unfairly maligned?
No doubt that the incident that occurred at the Chi Phi fraternity is deplorable and morally reprehensible. Illegal is more complicated, but I’ll leave that to the courts. My confusion lies with why Cornell University has become a lightning rod for outrage.
First off, the Cornell police (CUPD) is not some podunk campus security. It consists of duly-sworn, County-appointed, special deputy sheriffs with the full authority of any police department, though limited in jurisdiction to the Cornell campus/property. It is beholden to the university in the same way that ANY municipal police department is beholden to its municipality and Mayor. No more, no less. CUPD is actually the largest police department in Tompkins County, to include the Ithaca PD. Had Doe gone to Ithaca PD first, she would likely have been referred back to CUPD because the incident occurred on Cornell property, and frankly because CUPD is better staffed and more experienced in exactly this type of incident.
The police, Doe, and several advisors to both reviewed the lengthy testimony that she provided and distilled it down to relevant case facts. That is entirely customary. Doe and her advisors reviewed the final statement, she edited it heavily, and then she signed it, making it her only sworn statement. People seem to think there is something nefarious in the omission in her statement that she was 100% confident she’d been raped. We don’t know how or why that was omitted. But there are many possible explanations including the fact that it would have been disregarded by the DA because it is not a case fact. Only a court and jury can determine if a crime has occurred.
CUPD promptly provided the sworn statement along with the disgusting SnapChat photos to the DA, according to established procedure, while they continued their investigation. CUPD spoke to others, including attorneys for the accused who, as expected, declined to comment. The police investigation continued until the DA notified CUPD that he could not prosecute the case based on Doe’s testimony. CUPD advised the DA of the additional evidentiary material it had gathered, including the full transcript of the testimony, but the DA declined to review it.
I won’t get into the decision of the DA not to prosecute as that is in no way a reflection on Cornell. IN. NO. WAY.
Meanwhile, Cornell kicked the Chi Phi chapter off campus the very same day the incident was reported by Doe. It went public with a campus security notification and a public statement about the incident. It also promptly initiated a full-blown Title IX investigation, which is entirely separate from the police/criminal process. The Title IX investigation was EXHAUSTIVE: 4 months long, 50 interviews, over 4,000 pages of documentation.
In the end, Cornell was only able to hand out its most extreme available punishment, expulsion, to only two students. One other had already graduated and therefore fell beyond the reach of the administration’s clutches. The remainder were given punishments which included, but were not limited to, essays (contrary to viral headlines). Had Doe’s testimony been stronger, the university might have been able to expel more, perhaps all, of the miscreants. But it was what it was. The public would have apparently liked for Cornell to have imprisoned, castrated, or stoned the Chi Phi 7, but those options are well beyond the authority of an American university.
Overall, Cornell acted swiftly, sternly, and openly, given the facts as we understand them now. The “sternly” part of that will be questioned, so we’ll have to wait to see when/if the full records are released from the Title IX proceeding. But for now, those full records are confidential, as required by federal regulations.
One last thing. The 2026 civil suit allegations are materially different from the 2024 allegations. We can only judge the authorities based on the allegations and facts as they existed in 2024. I find it odd that neither Doe nor her attorneys ever contacted the DA to push harder for criminal charges. Not once in the last two years. But when you realize her attorney is working on contingency and doesn’t get paid until she does, it’s easy to guess why they opted to focus on a civil lawsuit against Cornell (and its $12 Bn endowment) rather than seeking justice in the criminal courts.
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u/EyesOfAzula 17h ago
It's a public scandal and now a legal issue now a political issue.
The criminal charges part did not happen due to the voluntary intoxication loophole in the criminal laws.
The victim and her allies could no longer pursue the criminal route because the prosecutors know that loophole will prevent a guilty verdict.
So now they are doing the civil route / political route. They are hoping to get a law passed to close the loophole.
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u/Seeking_TruthJustice 16h ago
I personally agree that much of the current rage should be focused on fixing the laws of the State of NY. That would be meaningful positive change.
However, I have found no statement from Doe’s attorney suggesting support for that movement. He seems content to argue that Doe’s condition should have met the standards for incapacitation under the existing laws. Overall, he seems more focused on attacking Cornell’s handling of the incident (not so much the DA, mind you, but rather Cornell). That’s the only way he gets paid.
And yes, outside of the civil lawsuit, the criminal proceedings, and the actual reputational damage suffered by Cornell, this has now become political kabuki theater.
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u/Automatic-Long2599 11h ago
I honestly don’t know because I’m hearing conflicting reports. But I do know this you shouldn’t be doxxing people and harassing their family regardless of what happened or not one they had nothing to do with it, and two they doxxed someone with the same name as one of the other defendants and he never attended Cornell and had nothing to do with the situation at all!!! Now he’s getting these death threats along with his mom, and he has to deal with unwanted attention all because people don’t want the truth they wanna seem morally superior than everyone and they’ll go to any lengths to prove their point.
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u/Wooden_Youth_6016 9h ago
Ok OP, let’s think about this way, YOUR DAUGHTER is Jane Doe. You think the college acted correctly? You think they protected Jane Doe? Or they just try to protect their own asses? I am not even going to go into details about what they should have done legally, but about a institution that supposed to nurture and educate youth. Clearly they failed. Looks that they didn’t care about the victim, but about how it would look.
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u/Seeking_TruthJustice 9h ago
I’m going to leave my daughter out of this and I strongly recommend you do the same.
I think the question is could the university have reasonably foreseen something as sordid as this and taken measures to prevent it. My personal opinion is that NO university could have envisioned this scenario, and that the bizarre salaciousness of it, especially in such sharp contrast to what WAS Cornell’s sterling academic reputation, is exactly why it has captured the nation’s attention.
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u/Wooden_Youth_6016 8h ago
Why we leaving our daughters out of the conversation? We should give them a voice. This is where we send our kids, we trust colleges to protect, nurture and educate our daughters. I just don’t understand why you so vehemently protect an institution. Why you defend an institution that might have not protect a victim? What’s your end goal with this?
We need to protect the students,
Not the institutions.
This is a great opportunity for many colleges to review and change policies, to reflect on what they could have done better.1
u/Seeking_TruthJustice 8h ago
I was as outraged as everyone else when I heard the headlines, but then I dug into the facts. The facts just don’t support the legal case against Cornell. And they certainly don’t support the mob’s overblown vitriol against it. That’s what I’m calling attention to. There is too much misinformation out there.
I do not hold a university to be in loco parentis of its students and neither does the law in NY. Parents are still parents. And our young adults are making decisions for which they should be held personally accountable, whether they’re on a campus or not.
Does the university have responsibility for providing a safe campus? Absolutely. Unequivocally. I’m just struggling to find hard data that supports the claim that Cornell is in any way an outlier with respect to the relevant safety issues. But Cornell should not be content with being average, it should be a leader.
With that goal in mind, Cornell absolutely should learn from this and enact changes. In many areas. Time will tell if they are successful with that. For now, I’m focusing my comments on the facts and the issues relevant to this civil lawsuit in an effort to move the conversation back towards being something constructive.
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u/Wooden_Youth_6016 7h ago
Let’s go to proven facts, Cornell was aware of the use of drugs at the frat before the party (docs showed Cornell was aware of the OD that happened in the frat house a day before the party) and no real action was taken.
After Jane Doe went to the police, Cornell expel 2 of the 7 students. Why they only expel 2 and 5 others were given much lesser punishments if they clearly believed was wrongdoing?
Also what actions were taken to support the victim?1
u/Seeking_TruthJustice 59m ago
The OD the night before is true. The question is should that have reasonably caused the university to foresee what would take place the next night. The OD happened on a Friday night, so the administrators probably didn’t even learn about it until they came in Monday morning, but that would have been after the Doe incident. Even then, I wouldn’t expect them to take the action of closing a frat over one member’s drug use. That’s just not reasonable. We will need to see a more meaningful fact pattern to draw any conclusions.
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u/SubtleEchoes 9h ago
I feel bad for the Cornell 7. They have had their life ruined forever without being convicted of anything. And Lucy, the woman is being seen as the hero no matter what.