The Cornell 7 allegations are horrifying. The questions about accountability are infuriating

Over the weekend, my feed filled with the same seven faces, their workplaces and their LinkedIn photos, and long explanations, mostly from women, about why they were posting these seven faces. It started in drips and drabs, and then exploded.

I nodded furiously at posts from strangers I’m not connected with, demanding accountability. A lawsuit set it off, and the case is now known as the “Cornell 7.”

Here is what is alleged. A 101-page civil lawsuit says a Cornell student was drugged and raped by seven fraternity members. The complaint says that at 1:42 a.m., a Snapchat message went to the group “Chi Phi Actives,” telling members there was “free p----” upstairs.

Related: LGBTQ+ people are speaking out about the Cornell Seven. Are you?

Then, multiple fraternity members entered the room, where the woman was allegedly pressured into taking more ketamine and subjected to an hours-long assault lasting until about 5:45 a.m., her attorneys wrote.

I cannot imagine a more despicable group of human beings. Scratch that, subhuman beings. The accusations paint a picture of frat boys with an inflated sense of entitlement, with clearly no respect for women, and no respect for decency, who allowed their puffed-up bro-ness to damage a woman for the rest of her life. There is no getting over that.

I was groomed and fondled by a priest, and that has left a permanent scar. Something of this magnitude alters your life forever.

Related: The Consequences of a Priest's Abuse

But I think it’s the aftermath that has people furious, and it’s had me thinking hard about everything that’s transpired since that first drip. None of the men faced criminal charges. Cornell expelled two of the seven, while the others got lesser punishments such as suspensions, workshops, or assignments.

The lawsuit says some were “afforded the opportunity to mitigate their conduct by submitting essays,” which Cornell denies. And the victim? She withdrew from Cornell. Yep, let the arrogant boys roam free while the woman suffers at home.

Can we just stop here for a minute? Writing an essay? About what? If these assholes had the banal brashness of gang raping a girl, laughing all the way, can you imagine what they thought about the faint slap on the wrist of writing an essay as a punishment? The disconnect is jarring at best.

Fairness matters, so let me say what the other side says. Attorneys for the named defendants have denied the allegations. The district attorney has said her 2024 statement described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary and consensual, a characterization her attorney disputes. But an ABC News report said that there was much more to the story. Much more.

If this sickening tawdriness is true, the woman was, I am sure, frightened out of her mind reliving that night. Every time that priest walked into our classroom after he assaulted me, I was terrified. If seven men attacked her, can you imagine how terrified she must have been, and how that shaped her original story?

Well, the public pressure worked, because prosecutors are reopening the investigation, and a grand jury will review the case. The truth should be tested in court, not in some backroom negotiation or a flimsy administrative process that ends with a stupid writing assignment.

People are not only angry about what allegedly happened. They are angry about the presumption that it would disappear. That presumption is entitlement and the smug certainty that the rules don’t apply to you, and if something bad happens, someone will handle it, it will go away, and the life you planned will still be waiting.

We have seen it in politics this year. Former Congressman Eric Swalwell was a Democratic frontrunner for California governor until a former staffer said he raped her when she was heavily intoxicated, an allegation he strongly denies. She said she feared coming forward because “he was so powerful.” More accusers followed, and he resigned from Congress while continuing to deny wrongdoing. The allegations are under investigation by prosecutors in Manhattan and Los Angeles.

Then there was Graham Platner in Maine, the oysterman-turned-Senate-candidate who was supposed to be Democrats’ populist answer to Susan Collins. After each accusation that was alleged, he waved it off. Then a Maine woman told Politico and CNN that Platner entered her home without permission in 2021 while drunk and forced himself on her. He denied it. He dropped his Senate bid.

Related: Graham Platner suspends campaign. For Democrats, the sexual assault allegation was too much

The case of megachurch founder Robert Morris provides a stark reminder of how institutional privilege can shield abusers from timely accountability. For decades, he wielded immense religious authority and cultural entitlement that insulated him from the consequences of sexually abusing a 12-year-old child.

When legal reckoning finally arrived, his brief, six-month jail sentence under a lenient plea agreement further underscored how elite status often softens the impact of criminal justice.

Just who do these people think they are?

Whether it’s a frat house, a campaign trail or a pulpit, the assumption is the same. I'm powerful, or well-connected, or well-liked, and no one will believe her, or they will look away.

The 2018 allegations against now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh illustrate this. After years of suffering quietly, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testified that Kavanaugh had pinned her to a bed, groped her, and trapped her during a high school gathering, yet his combative defiance and subsequent confirmation to the Supreme Court epitomized a systemic culture that often protects powerful figures from credible accusations. He denied the allegations.

The Cornell 7 case moved because someone preserved a screenshot, because people wouldn’t let it go, and because the woman at the center of it found the courage to keep going.

If you are somewhere right now, at a desk, in a boardroom or a frat house, or behind a pulpit, and you did something disgusting and believe no one will ever find you, I'd think long and hard about that belief.

Someone will find you. It may take two years, as it did here, but the evidence has a long memory; the public will get angry, you will be held accountable, and you will come to regret your smugness, entitlement, and privilege.

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