@momofboiler1 I don’t know if what everyone is saying about has truth or legal merits but tone deaf or not, you can be assured that each person’s attorney will weaponize any of the info out there to defend their clients.
If 57 people received an appalling text message and did nothing and I’m not sure what it said, but if it’s the ones listed in the media, it may be terrible no one did a thing but it’s also likely not criminal.
It is ok for the state to say the investigation was botched. But they also have made it appear that the boys are guilty. And that is not ok.
It’s one thing for people on this chat board to conclude things one way or another but it shouldn’t happen at the governmental level.
In the end, we may never know the truth. Or the final outcomes may not represent the truth.
But it’s also unfair to call out everyone who is offering a perspective - their perspective - tone deaf. This is a public discussion board and people are providing persepctive.
You may not agree, and I don’t know everyone’s gender, but my guess is there is a gender divide in the discussion.
But some of the very points made here, if out in the public eye, will likely be made by attorneys on both sides.
For sure there is a gender divide in this discussion here as there is in my real life circle. That should be a signal that this is a super sensitive topic for many many women and some of the comments being made are very callous. I can’t even imagine what Jane Doe must be going through.
And yes, everyone is entitled to share their perspective, including me since I’m not moderating this thread.
I don’t believe this is happening. Guilty of what?
For the state to conclude that there MIGHT be evidence- digital, physical, genetic-- which was not collected or handled appropriately does not mean that they are “making it appear” that the boys are guilty. And they are boys? great-- then Jane Doe is a girl. Right?
There have been no indictments, no sentencing, no verdicts. So whatever “appearances” there might be, are entirely based on however someone is interpreting the various social media posts and what is being posted in the actual media.
I interpret the state’s stance right now as “the locals were incapable of conducting an actual investigation. Cornell police- Cornell administration- local cops and DA. So we are taking over”. That’s hardly a statement of guilt on the part of the accused.
The tension here is that this kind of behavior has been happening for too many years, too many people allow it to happen (seriously, 57 people received the texts), and too many people make excuses for the behavior. And people continue to victim blame as the default response.
If Jane Doe, was in fact, wronged. If she was, yes it’s horrible.
If she wasn’t, then, what she’s going through would have consequences based on her action of filing a lawsuit.
Based on what’s been made public, I don’t know what to think. But we are not on the jury and they will likely see and hear a lot more. I’m not sure how they seat a jury given how much of this, right or wrong, has been shared at the top of the news.
Yes, you will call my comment callous but that goes back to the assumption that many have presumed she was wronged. And by me questioning that you will say it’s callous. But others involved have questioned that as well, because just because she says she was wronged doesn’t make it that she was wronged. We might find out in the end, that those charged were wronged, even if they were/are disgusting pigs - like the Duke scenario.
And that’s why the rushes to judgement are dangerous. And that’s why we need to wait - and why it’s all very sad.
But as we learned yesterday from one of the posters, the costs are even higher than those directly implicated. It’s sad and frightening that students and staff both not affiliated and in many cases, high school juniors and seniors at the time are taking flack. I hope employers don’t abandon them. I had not thought of that until one of the posters mentioned their student is there and it’s a real thing. They should be focused on academics and enriching their lives vs. having every waking moment a focus on this incident.
These kids, guys and girls, are unwitting victims. Who knows, it might impact people’s dating lives too - that perhaps people that wanted or would have dated no longer would, etc. Or the divides happening on this very board - might be happening in real life on campus too, impacting friendships and more.
“New York State has rigid standards for criminal allegations of rape, requiring evidence of either “forcible compulsion” or “incapacity to consent,” often meaning physical helplessness. Furthermore, if an accuser in New York State was “voluntarily intoxicated,” she cannot argue that she was mentally incapable of consent.”
A high percentage of the college educated workforce in America are employed as “at will” employees. They can be let go at any time and for any reason, subject to federal law (you can’t just fire all your Black employees and claim you are just downsizing) and state/local law (some states have notice periods or other statutory requirements on dismissing people). If a bank (let’s call it Wells Fargo, shall we?) which has been under the gun for the last few years and has suffered reputationally, decides that the PR storm of employing someone who has been POSSIBLY IMPLICATED (not convicted, not indicted, but implicated) is too hot to handle- then they are within their rights to terminate him or her.
Private enterprise does not function as judge or jury. The bar is significantly lower. You can be let go for an “ethical lapse” at work which wouldn’t even reach the level of a misdamenor, let alone a felony.
Hope not but I hadn’t given thought to the idea that the current student body would be tarred by the general public until the poster mentioned it yesterday.
So - one never knows - what type of bias someone out there will bring. After all, whether HR or another group making these decisions, they are all made up of regular people.
It’s your verbiage, not mine. If you believe it to be true, you shouldn’t change it.
I was just noting - that’s a word implying guilt. You may believe that. It’s your right. I’m fine with that. I’m not you - and the board is here for you to share your thoughts, as you often do.
I don’t know if they will be found guilty legally but I’m pretty sure the boys are scum. But being a scumbag isn’t illegal. So I’m hesitant to label anyone such.
Two things I haven’t seen mentioned in this thread (maybe I missed it) was that, probably unsurprisingly, she was lied to when she asked afterwards why men kept coming into the room, and probably of more consequence, that she was physically harmed by the episode and had to visit the ER. Also of interest is that she recorded the phone calls and handed them over to Cornell.
Within two days of reporting the incident to police, Jane Doe contacted Ingalls and two other men allegedly involved in the incident to get their assessment of what happened that evening. She said she had been to the emergency room and going through therapy in order to deal with the physical and psychological fallout. She recorded the phone calls and later provided them to Cornell University.
She mentioned that she had sustained physical harm from the episode, was struggling to finish the semester and could not understand how the events of the evening transpired.
Jane Doe also asked about how so many people ended up in the bedroom where the sexual encounters took place over the course of hours.
“Do you remember how any of these guys walked in?” she asked.
“The door was just unlocked…the party was sort of like crowded…there was nowhere else to go,” he responded.
Nowhere in that conversation did Ingalls mention the messages he sent into his fraternity’s Snapchat group in which he openly invited others to the room.
Fraternities are part of the American “Sleep-Away Camp” model of education. College is not about education-- not really-- it’s about socializing. It’s a big amusement park, and it’s the college’s job to keep the fun going. That’s why colleges have their own security forces, even their own police forces. It’s not to provide extra protection for the students, it’s to keep the real police away, because the colleges know that what goes on in the dorms (and especially in Greek houses) is illegal. How can a bunch of underage students get wasted at parties if cops are around enforcing laws? What a buzz kill!
Colleges are afraid to discipline the frats (perish the thought of actually eliminating them!) because that would piss off alumni. And kissing the butts of alumni is all part of the Sleep-Away Camp model. Do alumni get up in arms if you eliminate an academic department? Naw. But they go nuts if you cut a frat or a sports team. Because for alumni, their Sleep-Away Camp memories are about the social stuff not the classroom stuff.
The Sleep-Away Camp experience is why people look down on “commuter colleges.” Because what’s the point of just attending college for education?
Exactly. Didn’t they say they are gathering evidence to put it before a grand jury to see if there is a case to go to trial? How is that assuming guilt?
I changed it. Thanks for pointing out that I was “prejudging”.
An anecdote on companies and employees… a colleague of mine had to fire a very senior VP (this goes back decades). He threatened a lawsuit- did not go quietly-- badmouthed the company for years claiming that he’d been fired for watching porn on his own time.
That was not accurate. He was fired for watching porn in hotel rooms and then charging the movies to his corporate card, and then asking his assistant to document each and every charge on his expense report by name. So “Debbie does whatever” or god knows what other titles. He was reprimanded- not by HR but by the accounting department- and told that he could do whatever he liked in his downtime while traveling, but eating a sandwich in the hotel cafe was clearly a business expense, but watching PPV in his room was clearly a personal expense.
This went on for months- charges, making the assistant do the really gross task of inputting the titles (and there were lots of them), accounting calling him to tell him they were not paying, him ignoring the warnings that this was against company policy- and then he was terminated. He clearly found the idea of his assistant having to deal with this every month entertaining-- even once it was clear that the company was not going to pay the charges.
So I guess there are two sides to every story. His side is that he was fired for watching TV in his hotel room. The company’s side is that after making his assistant go through a degrading process month after month, even after he’d been warned, told about the policy, made to pay for his own “recreation”, etc-- he was terminated for creating a hostile work environment for his assistant.
I saw this point mentioned in a different article, about a Dartmouth student who died during a hazing ritual.
The math—and the money—isn’t hard to follow: Dartmouth boasts the second-highest percentage of alumni donors of any university in America, according to U.S. News and World Report. And according to hazing expert and psychologist Susan Lipkins, some of the most reliable donors tend to be those who return for game days and Greek-life functions.
It’s not only women who are harmed by the frats, and indeed not only women who get sexually assaulted there. This article was quite an eye-opener.i didn’t post it originally because the focus is different but it certainly shows the kind of toxic culture at these frats.