A New York district attorney said Tuesday the rape case his office declined to prosecute two years ago against seven Cornell students “will be prosecuted” now that the victim has filed a civil lawsuit this month with new details.
The civil suit names several defendants, including the seven men who had sexual contact with the victim, their fraternity, the victim’s sorority and the school.
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The day Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten announced he was reopening the case, an attorney for the victim said even more people were aware of the assault at the time and failed to report it, let alone stop it. The civil suit includes a screenshot showing messages posted on a private Snapchat thread for members of the Chi Phi fraternity inviting people to participate in the alleged assault. News of dozens of other fraternity members knowing about the incident has many questioning why their complicity is not being punished.
“The fact that they sent an invitation out to 57 men to rape a woman, and nobody did anything to stop it — this is horrible to me,” Thomas P. Giuffra, the attorney representing the victim, told a television reporter. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Now, public outrage is turning towards the members of that chat group where the assault was discussed openly but did not act.
Outrage over indifference
“Fifty men did nothing,” one woman said in a video posted Tuesday, which now has nearly half a million views on TikTok and Instagram. “They were on campus. They could have done something. They could have called the cops, but they didn’t.” The user, who goes by the name MsMayDayTheFirst, said in a video the next day, “I think the Cornell 50 now should be our focus.”
In another video with more than 200,000 views on TikTok, user Boogie Rae said, “All it took was for one man in that group chat to step up and say, ‘I’m not allowing this s— to happen.'”
“If some 50 or 60 boys are on a text thread,” KQED public radio correspondent Maria Lagos recently asked in a podcast, “where is the moral clarity for one of those guys to say what is going on?”
But legal experts say current laws often do not compel action, even in cases where a person is in obvious need of help.
“It is one area where law and morality conflict,” Prof. Cynthia V. Ward of the William and Mary Law School told Straight Arrow. Laws in the United States are geared towards “guaranteeing individual choice and autonomy,” Ward said. “The cost is there are some really awful cases where someone … could have easily helped or saved the life of the victim,” but doesn’t. “And there is no crime there.”
Jaehyun Oh, a partner at The Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Firm in New York, which exclusively represents plaintiffs in these cases, said in a statement to Straight Arrow News, “The law generally holds that there is no legal obligation to act as a Good Samaritan or to report their knowledge to the authorities.” She also said the Cornell case “raises serious questions” about the responsibility of Cornell and other people at the school.
“With this internet culture, and Snapchat and everything, it does raise the question of whether people should have the duty to do something,” when they are made aware of a person “in obvious need of help,” Oh said in a follow-up interview.
“Within the legal community we’ve always been wondering if we should encourage people to step in and help each other out,” she said. Whether that is done by shielding people from a certain level of liability, or imposing penalties for not acting, “is an interesting policy question.”
‘Bad Samaritan’ laws
Professor Zachary Kaufman of the University of Florida Levin College of Law, who did not respond to an email Thursday seeking comment, has written extensively about laws related to victims, witnesses, bystanders and those who intervene.
In a 2018 talk, Kaufman said, “many crimes, including those of a sexual nature and especially where they are widespread, require indifference of, or facilitation by third parties.” He said “Bad Samaritan” laws could potentially compel people to safely intervene — which he calls being an “upstander,” rather than a “bystander” who does not act. He also said prosecutors could compel people to cooperate with investigations by offering immunity from Bad Samaritan laws. “Given how often sexual abuse occurs with the tacit knowledge of third parties,” Kaufman said, “it requires a collective response.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Wednesday that even though New York has “some of the toughest laws” about sexual assault on campuses, she directed her staff to see whether they can be made stronger in the upcoming legislative session.
“I think we can do better,” Hochul said. “This culture has to stop.”
Round out your reading
- Lawyer says 57 Cornell frat members were in the group chat. Could their silence be a crime?
- Florida county discovers mysterious Flock cameras with no obvious owner.
- Off Script: They won their primaries on one message. Now it’s disappearing.
- Some question whether a popular affordable housing policy is making the nation’s home shortage worse.
- Kelvin wave incoming: Why the US should care.
