In Cornell Sexual Assault Case, Democrats Forget the Lessons of the Duke Lacrosse Scandal

Two decades ago, a spectacular allegation of gang rape at a prestigious university seized the public’s attention. We all know how the Duke lacrosse case ended: with the prosecutor disgraced and disbarred; the accused students declared innocent; and (albeit much later) the accuser admitting that she lied.

Less well-remembered is the process by which justice prevailed. Ethics charges against Mike Nifong, in part based on the district attorney’s improper public statements prejudging the Duke students’ guilt, forced his recusal. North Carolina governor Mike Easley, a Democrat, publicly denounced Nifong’s conduct. North Carolina attorney general Roy Cooper, another Democrat, oversaw the fair and comprehensive investigation that Nifong refused to do, releasing a 21-page report outlining the evening’s events on a minute-by-minute basis and identifying Nifong’s myriad procedural and factual inconsistencies. As a result, Cooper publicly affirmed the lacrosse players’ innocence.

Political realities enhanced Cooper’s credibility. It would have been politically safer for Cooper to wash his hands of the case by sending it to a jury, lest he alienate progressive and African-American voters—voters that any North Carolina Democrat needs to win—who had remained loyal to Nifong. Instead, Cooper pursued the truth even if important elements in his electoral coalition would have preferred he do otherwise.

Two decades later, a spectacular allegation of gang rape at a prestigious university has again seized the public’s attention—this time at Cornell. Here, however, the response of Democratic statewide officials has been very different. Both Governor Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James have seemed eager to exploit the case for political advantage at the expense of ensuring fairness to all sides. And national Democrats have been cheering them on.

On September 14, a former Cornell student identified only as Jane Doe filed a suit in New York state court, alleging that Cornell had mishandled a gang-rape allegation she had made two years before. Doe had accused seven male students; Cornell had found all of them responsible for some form of sexual misconduct under Title IX guidelines that allow colleges and universities to determine guilt by a "preponderance of the evidence," a far lower standard than the "guilt beyond a reasonable doubt" used in the courtroom. Two of the students were accused of little more than walking into the room where Jane Doe was, and they were found guilty of attempted "sexual exploitation."

Although Doe sought a pseudonym for herself, she identified the seven accused students by name. A week later, the Cornell student newspaper published an editorial leading off with the accused student’s names, triggering the feeding frenzy that continues unabated.

In response to the lawsuit, the local district attorney, Matthew Van Houten, issued a lengthy statement explaining why he had not filed charges in 2024. He noted, among other things, that the events as described by Doe herself in her sworn, six-page statement to police did not meet the definition of sexual assault under New York law. Nonetheless, Van Houten said he’d reopen the criminal case and have a grand jury to decide whether to pursue charges. Van Houten is a Democrat, and Tompkins County is a liberal bastion in conservative upstate New York. So there was scant reason to believe an anti-victim bias would permeate the investigation.

Nonetheless, on September 28, James posted a statement on the attorney general’s official social media accounts: "What this young woman has been forced to endure is horrific and unacceptable. I’m holding her in my heart and in my prayers. To her, and to all survivors: you’re not alone. We stand with you." James was describing Doe as a crime victim—a "survivor"—without having investigated the case herself or explaining why the local district attorney’s contrary conclusion was incorrect. There was, in short, no way to interpret James’s remarks other than a pronouncement of the accused students’ guilt.

Despite—or, perhaps, because of—that sentiment, Governor Hochul replaced Van Houten with James in handling the case. At a press conference announcing James’s appointment as an "independent special prosecutor," Hochul dismissed questions about James’s prejudgment on grounds that she had personal confidence in the attorney general.

We’ve been told that "Woke 1 was crazy," as if the 2010s excesses on cultural issues are now recognized by all as problematic. But in recent days, the Cornell case has provided a preview of what’s likely to come from a Democratic Congress on campus sexual assault matters. It’s as if we have returned to 2015, at the height of the Obama-era Title IX environment, where politicians regularly equated campus allegations with guilt. And no Democratic legislator has criticized Hochul for appointing an obviously compromised figure to handle the criminal investigation.

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer issued a statement claiming that "sexual assault remains far too common on college campuses across America, and the culture of silence and complicity that allows it to persist must be confronted." (This, again, was a case in which all seven students were found responsible in the Cornell Title IX process.) Washington senator Patty Murray described the incident as a "serious and horrific case of sexual assault" (no "alleged" in her wording) and denounced the 2020 Title IX regulations, which required fair treatment of both sides. The Washington senator didn’t explain how Cornell showed that the Title IX regulations—which governed the procedures under which the students were found responsible—were flawed. Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee in Michigan, accused Cornell of having "protected [Doe’s] abusers, letting them off with a slap on the wrist." Two of the students were expelled—the most serious punishment a university can give. It’s not clear why El-Sayed deems this "a slap on the wrist."

It is true that two of the accused students received a minimal punishment. But their fate hardly exemplified Schumer’s alleged campus "culture of silence and complicity." Cornell charged one of these two, Scott Kretzschmar, with sexual exploitation under Title IX. Based on Doe’s allegations, the university maintained that Kretzschmar walked into the room and saw Doe naked, and also that he sniffed ketamine off her naked body. Reporting from Sohrab Ahmari and Valerie Stivers revealed how he was able to prove his innocence of these allegations: Doe was under a blanket when he saw her, and a hair follicle test showed no presence of ketamine in his body. Yet even though Doe’s allegations about him had been false, Cornell found him guilty anyway: of an offense—attempted sexual exploitation—for which he hadn’t been charged.

Kretzschmar sued. Two weeks ago, a New York court found for Cornell. The ruling held that neither New York law nor Cornell’s procedures "expressly require[d] that an accused student be notified of the specific code of conduct provisions, or rule or law, alleged to have been violated." Kretzschmar was out of luck.

Neither New York Democratic leaders nor Senate Democrats have explained why a process that doesn’t even require accused students to receive specific notice of the charges against them is somehow not only biased in favor of the accused, but so biased as to justify both the current commentary and Hochul’s extraordinary move to put James in charge of the criminal case. Expect no self-reflection as they continue to exploit the incident. Perhaps when he (almost certainly) joins them in the Senate following this year’s midterm elections, Roy Cooper can inform his Democratic colleagues why rushing to judgment and denying due process in campus rape cases is a bad idea.

KC Johnson, a professor of history at Brooklyn College, has written widely on campus Title IX matters.

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