October 2, 2026

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: The Moral Wilderness of the Cornell Seven Case.

So, what did happen? Jane Doe’s complaint says that she started drinking vodka at her sorority house and was already intoxicated when she got to a bar, which served her at least one drink even though she was underaged and drunk (she is suing the bar). She then went to the fraternity house, where she alleges that one of the men “propositioned her with having a threesome with her and another one of his fraternity brothers.” Things went badly off the rails from there.

Did she agree? The complaint doesn’t say. It instead insists that, “in her drunken state, Plaintiff was incapable of consenting to this proposition.” That, however, is simply not the standard under New York law — at least, not the criminal law. The New York Penal Code offers three avenues to prove rape (other than the victim being underage). Third-degree rape under Section 130.25 punishes sex “without such person’s consent where such lack of consent is by reason of some factor other than incapacity to consent.” Second-degree rape under Section 130.30 requires proof that the victim was “incapable of consent by reason of being mentally disabled or mentally incapacitated.” First-degree rape under Section 130.35 requires proof that the victim was “incapable of consent by reason of being physically helpless.” As Sunny Hostin of The View — who is rarely a voice of sanity, but is also an experienced prosecutor of sex offenses — noted, New York law doesn’t consider a victim to be incapacitated, physically or mentally, simply because she was voluntarily intoxicated and had impaired judgment.

From here on, we have sharply conflicting accounts from Jane Doe herself. According to Van Houten, her 2024 statement shows that she consented not only to the threesome but also to the orgy that followed with five other frat brothers. If that’s true, it’s case closed for rape; if it’s not true but it’s what was in her statement at the time, Van Houten acted entirely correctly in refusing to bring charges. Moreover, if she said conflicting things then (with the chance to press criminal charges) and now (when she is suing the university and others for money in Manhattan), that would tend to suggest that the later account is the less credible one. The CBS account of Jane Doe’s statement to the Cornell police is less emphatic on this point but seems consistent with having consented to at least some of what happened:

The transcript shows she distinguished the initial sexual activity from what she says happened later, and when asked whether she was OK with the initial encounter, she said, “Yeah, as much as I can be because, again, I was super drunk when I got there. . . . But I was pretty OK with all of this.” Jane Doe added, according to the transcript, “And then, of course, I was being hit at the same time. Physically hit very, very hard.” . . . She said she didn’t remember the end of the night “where I was raped” and didn’t know how many people had sex with her. When describing what happened later in the night, the transcript says Jane Doe said, “I can say with 100% confidence I was raped.”

According to what we’ve been told about the 2024 statement, the two men who initiated the encounter were in fairly impaired condition themselves:

Jane Doe agreed—per her statement, she was “pretty okay with having this threesome” as well as titillated by the possibility that the two men might be sexually attracted to each other—but the encounter ended when both men proved too drunk to perform. Her friend lost his erection and fell asleep; the other man started dry heaving.

The second man seems not to be one of the seven accused rapists. Jane Doe and the men were drinking and snorting ketamine as things progressed, allegedly taking hits of the drug off one another’s sexual organs and other body parts. Jane Doe alleges in her complaint that she had never taken the drug before and that she was also given marijuana and rum. While her lawyers say (with conspicuous use of the passive voice) that she “was plied with alcohol and drugs to the point of intoxication,” they don’t actually indicate that this was involuntary.

And now a word from Camille Paglia: Camille Paglia on Frat Parties and Consent: “He Is Right to Think You Have Consented.”

Posted at 7:45 am by Ed Driscoll