Back in the early 2010s, we finally started having a national conversation about the very serious and widespread issue of campus sexual assault. But America did what America does, and the conversation quickly switched to how “annoying” people found some of the activists, how everyone’s good time was going to be ruined by probably having to fill out 78-page forms officially consenting to sex, how probably there were just a lot of gals who were mad that they didn’t get sent flowers after a one night stand (because that is, of course, something we all expect and would not think is weird), etc. etc. But the big nail in the coffin, as I was reminded during a recent rewatch of SVU season 16, was the 2014 Rolling Stone article “A Rape on Campus.” The article, as you surely recall, turned out to be bullshit, and the gang rape it described was determined to have never happened.
Things kind of died down after that, and while some of it was revisited during #MeToo, the push to take campus sexual assault seriously has garnered a lot less attention than it did during that time. You could be forgiven for thinking that a lot of the problems had been solved, that universities started taking reports from students who had been assaulted more seriously, and I’m sure that’s true to some degree.
But maybe not at Cornell.
A former student has filed a lawsuit against the Ivy League university for the truly disturbing way the school handled things when she reported that she had been brutally gang raped by seven members of a fraternity back in 2024. She is also suing the men who raped her, which I suppose is still a better outcome for them than prison.
According to the lawsuit, the plaintiff, who was 20 years old at the time, went out to a few bars with her sorority sisters, where — despite having Xes on her hands indicating she was underage, and despite the presence of the sorority’s “sober monitors” whose job it was to ensure that things didn’t get out of hand — she was served around 10 drinks in the span of three hours.
Fairly wasted by that time, she “stumbled” to the Chi Phi fraternity to hang out with Matthew Ingalls, a member she thought was her friend. She and Ingalls danced for a while in the main room, after which he asked her to have a threesome with him and his frat brother, which she did not consent to (and would not have been capable of consenting to, given her state). He then brought her upstairs, left her with another frat bro for a minute before coming back and bringing her to another room where his friend Jonathan Newell was sitting. Newell and Ingalls pushed her to drink more and even to do ketamine, which she’d never done before.
She did. Soon after, they raped her. Repeatedly. Then another frat bro joined in. Then Newell sent out a mass DM to his “Chi Phi Actives” group on Snapchat, promising them “free pussy.”
Ingalls replied in the chat “Like you can walk in and whip it out.”
And they did. Several other members of the frat soon came into the room, as she “retreated under the covers, trying to hide her naked body from the fraternity men.” One grabbed her face and tried to kiss her and she pushed him away. Newell poured a line of ketamine onto his erect penis and commanded her to snort it, which she did. The men then began doing lines of K off of her body. Eventually most of them left and, as the plaintiff was entirely incapacitated at that point, defendant Ingalls and another frat bro, Winston Lee, brought her to another room where they raped her again until she lost consciousness.
The next day, she went home, saw her bruises, took pre-emptive medication for a urinary tract infection, and found out that the whole school knew what had happened to her. With the encouragement of her friends, the plaintiff reported the incident to Cornell’s private police force, at which point the fraternity was placed on a temporary suspension, as were the seven students named in the suit: Matthew Ingalls, Jonathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris, and Scott Kretzschmar.
They were, however, offered the opportunity to “mitigate their conduct by submitting an essay to Cornell.”
An essay. They asked them to write an essay. Why not just tell them to go sit in the corner and think about what they’ve done? I don’t know how anyone who has lived on this planet for the last 13 years (or ever, but let’s say 2013 was perhaps the first year that a lot of people learned that it’s actually bad for frat bros to gang rape people), hears about a brutal gang rape, and thinks “I know! Let’s have them write essays.”
They did not involve the real police, and all but two of them were back on campus after the university concluded it’s “investigation.” The others were only lightly punished, with said essays and workshops.
The lawsuit states that the plaintiff “sustained injuries, including but not limited to, severe emotional and psychological distress, humiliation, fright, dissociation, anger, depression, anxiety, a severe shock to her nervous system, physical pain and mental anguish, and emotional and psychological damage,” and that “upon information and belief, some or all of these injuries are of a permanent and lasting nature, and Plaintiff has and/or will become obligated to expend sums of money for treatment.”
Obviously.
An editorial in the student paper notes that the university is capable of moving swiftly when a student is accused of “copying on a prelim,” but let 23 months pass without letting the student know the outcome of their “investigation” or making anything about the situation publicly known.
It reads:
Though when it comes to sexual assault, Cornell’s five-month-late response was a task force. During an interview with The Sun, the sexual assault task force co-lead and Dean of Students Marla Love said that “the charge was never for us to solve the problem.” In the interim, the University saw an increase in “nonconsensual sexual contact” to 15% of survey respondents from 11% in 2023, with a fifth of the incidents against undergraduate women occurring in fraternity houses or annexes. If the task force’s mission was not supposed to solve the problem of sexual assault, as Love has stated, then it has been a resounding success.
It sure has.
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The plaintiff alleges that the university failed to protect her both before and after the assault, and that they were aware of problems with those students and that fraternity beforehand and didn’t do anything.
Cornell has since responded with an official statement that sounds like some real bullshit.
The Cornell Office of Civil Rights and the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards investigated and adjudicated the allegations consistent with university policies. The Xi chapter of Chi Phi fraternity remains barred from our campus. Federal privacy law prohibits Cornell from disclosing specific information regarding individual students and we therefore are unable to make a public statement on any other disciplinary response. Violations of university policies could lead to sanctions up to and including suspension or expulsion. We will respond in detail through the legal process.
We take sexual violence extremely seriously. The Presidential Task Force on Campus Sexual Assault was launched shortly after this incident and issued a REPORT in March 2026. Several of the recommendations have already been implemented, while others are in development with oversight by a university implementation committee.
But, again, not with the intention of solving the problem. Because every woman on campus has to go to school every day with these creeps, knowing what they are capable of.
The Ithaca police are reportedly investigating the assault, though no charges have been filed. Hopefully something will happen with that, or else we’ll all have their future GOP congressional campaigns to look forward to.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
Sorry, I can't fully read this. I had to stop after looking at those utterly disgusting text messages. How much you wanna bet most of these rapist have cushy, high paying corporate jobs they never earned?
Then people ask me why I'm so against "Greek communities." Because they are plagued with drunken douchebag rapists whose rich parents pay for friends and connections. It's Rich White People's mafia. And even those who may be decent people, are enabling a corrupt, amoral system.
This horrible crap makes me wonder why women put up with men.
If that had happened to a sister of mine... it would be a full scale revenge plot.