That is a good question. The abstainers are not rare. Google says: Approximately 44% to 46% of U.S. adults either describe themselves as total abstainers or do not drink alcohol on a regular monthly basis.
1 Like
I actually was a sorority chapter advisor. I resigned my role in the early 90’s, when the sorority national organization made it clear that advisors would be on their own if someone decided to sue the local group over alcohol related issues (the organization had a zero tolerance stance on alcohol). My group was not a wild bunch, but I had a family & I simply couldn’t take a chance. I was sad to resign, but I knew it was the right thing to do.
2 Likes
I think it depends on the kids and the parents. My husband and I drank in front of our kids when they were growing up, but we never drank to excess and we never drank frequently (H and I aren’t big drinkers and aren’t frequent drinkers). When the kids were older, we would let them have sips, but only at home and not very often. We certainly never hosted parties where we let our kids and their friends drink, that is against the law. As adults, neither kid is a big drinker and neither kid has gotten in any sort of alcohol related trouble. I will say, both kids are introverts and neither is a big partier. Is that due to our parenting? Probably, but I think some it comes from their personalities.
There was one kid in D’s grade who had parents who would host parties and let the kids drink. The parents would drink with the kids. Like, mom and dad do shots with the kids. This kid was a big drinker and partier and that continued in college and in his 20’s. I don’t know what he’s doing these days, but I hope he has cut down on the drinking and partying.
I’ve also seen kids who come from strict families who go crazy in college and kids from strict families who don’t go crazy.
It’s not black and white and it’s not just parenting
8 Likes
The more that comes out about the investigation, the more the shortcomings are becoming known - both with Cornell police and the DA’s office.
D.A. in Cornell Rape Inquiry Declined to Review Additional Evidence
The Tompkins County district attorney said recently that the evidence he reviewed in 2024 made it impossible for him to bring charges in the Cornell University rape inquiry.
But records obtained by The New York Times show that the same district attorney’s office declined to review any additional evidence gathered by the campus police department beyond a six-page statement signed by the former student, now known as Jane Doe.
By that point, the police had conducted numerous interviews, reviewed chat messages, logged anonymous tips, reached out to lawyers for the some of the accused men and spoken to at least two others, the records show.
[The DA] office’s decision at the time not to examine additional evidence that had been gathered, or to seek any additional inquiry beyond a single — and as it turns out, incomplete — campus police statement, was a stark departure from how complicated sex crimes investigations should be handled, said former prosecutors and other experts.
The former prosecutors, however, said the district attorney’s approach fell short in multiple ways, including his failure to bring Jane Doe in to be interviewed by his office and his apparent total reliance on a statement recorded — and, more broadly, an investigation conducted — by the university police.
“We would never rely on a campus police investigation,” said Rick Trunfio, a former sex crimes prosecutor in upstate New York and now an adjunct law professor at Syracuse University. “There’s too many problems with that.”
Mr. Trunfio and other experts said the investigation should have been handed off to a specialized police or prosecution team like the special victims bureau he founded at the Onondaga County District Attorney’s Office. Also problematic, he added, is that the Cornell University Police Department was “beholden” to the school, which would have had to report under federal law if a gang rape on campus was prosecuted by civilian authorities.
“You think Cornell University wants to report something like that?” Mr. Trunfio said.
A Cornell representative who speaks on behalf of the campus police declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.
The campus police investigation, which continued until January 2025, included interviews with other students who belonged to or had socialized at the fraternity, and people who had called in with information. The police also sought and collected records for some social media and phone records of the accused men.
But the experts questioned why the Cornell police had not obtained warrants to search and seize the men’s phones in the days after the woman reported being assaulted.
The police also made relatively light-handed attempts to arrange interviews with the men, who dodged those efforts until most retained lawyers who advised them not to cooperate, records from the investigation show. More seasoned investigators might have been better able to elicit statements from a group of male college students, one ex-prosecutor said.
Gift link D.A. in Cornell Rape Inquiry Declined to Review Additional Evidence - The New York Times
2 Likes
Greetings to everyone…I haven’t jumped onto College Confidential in months and I haven’t read through this thread…. Only a few comments have caught my eye, so I don’t know if this aspect of the issue (that I’m going to mention ) has been touched upon yet.
My daughter is a current graduate student at Cornell. Many of you likely remember me (and possibly remember what she is studying) but because her program is small i don’t want to mention it here in order to protect her anonymity. What I want to say is that the whole campus is roiling with this. Regardless of what any one individual thinks about the controversy (what should have happened in response to this event, what should happen now), many on social media at large are together acting like a huge, angry mob targeting and insulting anyone associated with Cornell University, regardless of who they are, what gender they are, whether they are admin, undergraduates or graduate students, whether they ever participated in greek life, whether they were enrolled in the school at the time this horrific event occured or whether they even knew about it until the general public did. My daughter reports that people on social media are saying such things as, no employer should ever hire a Cornell graduate or that the entire university should be shut down. Students (including graduate students) with no connection to the events are getting death threats for no reason that i can discern. It’s possibly to jist say…meh….there will always be such crazed people….but this is having real consequences. For example, professionals who were to participate in a specific graduate student career weekend have pulled out. Student representatives in a specific minority group graduate student association have gotten death threats despite the fact that no one belonging to that particular minority group was known to be involved in the rape situation. It seems as if the whole world has lost its ability to think with any rationality anymore. Its as if all Cornell students are being painted (and tarred and feathered) as accessories to rape by a shockingly loud group of people. Has the world gone completely crazy? If i were a literal believer if the Bible I would surely think we had arrived at the Tower of Babbel. I’m concerned for my daughter. The stress of her program is quite enough to bear without the world (it seems) taking its fury out on students who had nothing to do with this occurrence.
18 Likes
I agree with this. We did not drink in front of our kids - not because we don’t drink or because we were standing on a moral high ground but because in the daily melee of raising kids, with all of their activities and the necessary driving, there never seemed to be time to squeeze in a cocktail. I don’t believe this had any bearing on their alcoholic consumption in college. We did have MANY conversations before they left about responsible behavior and the consequences of over-indulging, and the long-term consequences if law enforcement is involved. Their friends came from a variety of backgrounds. Some were responsible and some went crazy. There was no correlation to whether their parents were drinkers themselves. I do suspect there is a physiological connection to why some people cannot handle even small doses of alcohol. I’ve seen it with one of my adult friends who, as a result, has chosen to be sober.
I’m sorry this is affecting your daughter and her graduate program. Death threats are never acceptable! I remember similar calls not to hire Cornell graduates during the encampments, when Jewish students were being targeted and harassed. Yes, I do think the world has gone completely crazy - sadly.
I would be extremely distressed if the college that my child was attending was in the headlines in such a negative way - but as a parent, and the one writing the tuition checks, I would also want to hold that administration to the fire and make sure they did the right thing in this instance (especially because I have daughters); that there were no cover ups, no kowtowing to students of big donors, and that every “i” was dotted, every “t” crossed. There are a lot of nuances to this case and a lot of questions that need answers. Unfortunately, we are in the times where keyboard warriors will try the case 24 hours after it drops and they are LOUD. The “good” news in that regard is that inevitably something more horrifying will happen, and this story will eventually fade from the headlines until a decision is made about criminal charges.
2 Likes
I will say this: Social media has ruined civil society. It’s unconscionable that people … particularly those who are not connected in any way to the school or the students … are passing judgment on things about which they know very little. The school needs to take responsibility and make changes, but the event does not define the school. The students involved must face consequences, but those consequences should not be determined in social media … and students NOT involved should not be brought into this in any way.
I agree. What is wrong with people???
9 Likes
On the one hand mob pressure got the case reopened. However I am appalled at the mob behavior in general.
2 Likes
Something came up on my Facebook page about a documentary film called “The Hunting Ground” ** that came out about 10 years ago. The trailer popped this up, which a quick google search found, and I had remembered someone talking about insurance above. So the data is a little old, but sexual assault was the second-most common claim against frats. Lawyer /legal discussion linked too. I don’t think the latter is particularly well written but it’s interesting to see how hard it is to sue an individual chapter/how the insurance actually works and they note that “Oftentimes it is the fraternity member’s parents that are on the hook”.
** worth mentioning from the wiki article about this documentary: “The filmmakers feature experts who say that most rapes are committed by a small number of repeat offenders.”
Do you have support for this? I doubt many college kids grew up with a bowl of pills on the coffee table or pot available to smoke (or now gummies), but many do drugs as soon as they get to college. I witnessed kids ‘going crazy’ in college because it is their first experience with beer and other alcohol and they don’t know moderation
Many think the opposite, and feel the introducing alcohol to teens at home (or restaurants) teaches them how to enjoy it in moderation. In many countries kids grow up drinking wine at dinner
9 Likes
I genuinely don’t believe in this controlled introduction at home idea. We are not abstainers at home, but probably have half a glass of wine once in six months or less. I go to work events and have a club soda. Certainly in high school there is an expectation of zero alcohol. I never told the kids that there will be harsh punishment if they started drinking at some point in college, but that we would be seriously disappointed if they abused any substance. I told them not to try drugs at all. I don’t know — it sort of worked out. I have seen families where parents introduce the kids at 17 or 18, and their consumption in that case is much more. There is too much normalization at home. My kids skipped parties without telling us because there would be too much alcohol at those parties, and kids behaving silly, and it is all boring. They told us after the fact when I asked them why they are not going to high school parties. I think messaging helps, and we are deluding ourselves into thinking that it doesn’t help. Because if nothing helps, we are not responsible for the outcomes anyway. I am not saying that there aren’t outside influences, but I think the parent thinking that they have no influence on the kids is not being responsible. Values are taught from the time they are 3 or 4. If you cannot teach them to respect themselves and to respect others until they are 18, what can a college do with these kids from 18 to 22? It just becomes a policing problem at that point. I was upset with my mother in law for giving my son coffee at the age of 10 or something, because it is addictive.
It didn’t hurt that the older kid was academically ambitious, and simply decided that all the other stuff is just a distraction. And the younger kid had a reasonable role model in the older kid. We may have just gotten lucky. Role models at home matter. Certainly the younger kid told me that it was helpful to follow the older kid
1 Like
I struggle. We don’t drink. I might have a glass of wine at a work event - 3x a year. We just don’t enjoy it and my wife gets sick.
My son was going to be a non drinker but he joined the engineering frat and drank once - and puked - and that solved that.
My daughter - thinks she looks “cool” to drink so she and her bf get a bottle of win and have to show it on social media, etc. I don’t love it and hope they are being safe (driving, etc) and they say they are - they walk when they drink or would uber.
We did our best - but it is true, in some ways, you can’t or aren’t responsible.
I’m guessing most, if not all of the Cornell parents, didn’t create a system to have happened what did happen. We don’t know the parents. Perhaps it can be seen but I’m guessing they’ve come from good homes - certainly some of them.
2 Likes
I’ve tried very hard for the kids to eschew this notion of cool. I think I have had significant success with one kid, and moderate success with one kid. At this point they are out of our hands. We try hard for the kids to not compare themselves with other people for anything. It is a lofty goal, and is aspirational.
1 Like
Thinking about this further, it implies that if colleges cracked down properly on these offenders it could have a disproportionately (positive) influence on the number of SA cases.
1 Like
My opinion: it is much more “nature” vs “nurture”. The basis for my opinion is my 3 sons. Same family, same values, same amount of parental drinking. One was a Wild Child, definitely drinking and partying too much in college, and the other two did drink but in moderation for the most part.
I also have seen kids with very strict parents go crazy with the partying once they left home.
Parents do the best they can, and what works for one family won’t work for another. If it were that easy we would all do it!
11 Likes
@oldmom4896 posted this on hodge podge.
The headline doesn’t read right. It’s more he hates Letitia James than weighing in on the merits.
1 Like
However, the drunken party does seem to be an ideal environment for the predators to hide in and commit their crimes without being positively identified.
2 Likes
I know plenty of people who had consensual threesomes without anyone being assaulted and what their parents would think of that seems irrelevant to me. It is none of their parents business. If the parents are embarrassed by that it is their problem to deal with. In my opinion, if one’s kid gets brutally sexually assaulted by multiple men, and the parents are focusing on shame or embarrassment about what their kid was doing before their kid was violated, well that is bad parenting frankly. If there is ever a time one’s kid needs unconditional love and support, that is it. Most of us have done things our parents would not like at some point. Most of us have done things that were risky at some point as well. To have one’s parents judging them in that moment, after something like what happened to that young woman, I’m sorry, but the only shame should be on the parents for being embarrassed by their child at that time. Nothing would devastate me more than my parents being ashamed of me in my time of need because the world violated me as if I were subhuman.
14 Likes
I was simply noting different people see things differently. There is not just one way in any situation. I hope they are supportive of their daughter as I hope I would be.
But not everyone thinks like you do and I simply raised the point.
If anyone is on insta and interested, the Cornell Sun has a page on there (they broke the story to the public initially). Item today about a drugs arrest made at the frat house less than 24 hours before the Jane Doe incident.
4 Likes