Cruelty isn’t an angry person losing control. It’s one person looking at another, seeing an object and knowing nothing will happen to them for it. The absence of consequence doesn’t create the impulse. It just gives the impulse permission to show its face.
On Sept. 16, a former Cornell University student sued seven Chi Phi fraternity brothers, alleging they drugged and raped her in October 2024. The case is murkier than the headlines make it look. Her original statement to police describes agreeing to a threesome with two of the men, and a grand jury will decide whether anyone is charged. The lawsuit also claims some of the men were offered the opportunity to write an essay instead of facing real discipline. Cornell says that’s false. The story spread anyway, because we already believed a university would rather assign reading than call something monstrous. Essays instead of expulsion, even as a rumor, is a notice tacked to a wall: nothing happens to you for this.
Don’t get me wrong, I want due process for everyone involved. Jane Doe’s 2024 statement and her current lawsuit don’t line up, and it’s OK that no one can say yet which parts are true. But believing a woman when she says ...