This is the first in a series of articles covering the alleged druggings and assaults and the subsequent social suspension of the Fall 2022 semester. Articles will explore issues with Cornell’s judicial process, fundamental fairness and the benefits and drawbacks of Greek Life. This article is a discussion about the incidents during the Fall 2022 Semester and the Cornell Community’s reaction to them.
In recent years, Greek Life at Cornell has faced increasing scrutiny. Individual fraternities have been involved in numerous scandals over the past decade, and Cornell has suspended overall Greek activities 3 times in the past 4 years (one suspension was a result of the COVID-19 Pandemic). Cornell’s actions have drawn both praise and criticism, bringing arguments about campus safety and basic fairness to the forefront of the discussion.
Cornell implemented the most recent suspension of Greek activity in November 2022 following a string of alleged assaults and druggings. The ongoing suspension expanded on the IFC’s self-imposed moratorium on registered events, banned fraternity social activities through the end of the fall semester, and continued into the beginning of the Spring semester.
Cornell’s initial email on the subject referred to four alleged druggings and an alleged sexual assault occurring at “off-campus residences affiliated with registered fraternities.” Cornell has not indicated when the suspension will end, nor which fraternities in particular stand accused of misconduct.
University Assembly Discussions
With President Martha Pollack present, members of the University Assembly (UA) addressed the alleged assaults in an assembly meeting on November 15th–just 9 days after the last in a string of emergency alerts. In response to a question on the issue, President Pollack immediately tied the incidents to fraternities, saying:
I was horrified, outraged, I don’t, I can’t even express the words for what I feel about what has been going on at the fraternities. Those of you who are at least seniors…know that I’ve been sort of fighting this fraternity battle since I got here. My first year here, I put in place a bunch of regulations that were supposed to make a difference. And we put in place more regulations… I am at this point, again, I’m going to be honest with this group, I am at a loss for what we can do.
Pollack also questioned: “Do you think those benefits any longer outweigh the downsides of the fraternity system?”
David Hiner, a Senior Application Programmer in the College of Human Ecology and the UA Chair of the Campus Committee on Infrastructure, Technology, and the Environment questioned whether punishing whole fraternities created contradictory incentives:
So, I’m not necessarily in favor of fraternities, they do probably play an important role. But going back to punishment, there is the “I don’t trust you with the truth, because of the consequences of saying the truth.” Punishing a fraternity for coming forward to say, “We know this is happening. We know what happened on our watch. But should we be punished for it?” It’s a difficult conversation, because I don’t know if banning a whole fraternity because of a couple of bad apples should be there.
After rejecting the notion that Greek Life should be abolished, Andrew Juan, an Undergraduate Student Representative, conceded that he did not think fraternity benefits outweighed the costs. However, he questioned how much blame could be placed on fraternities for the actions of individuals.
If a brother of [a] fraternity commits sexual assault, if the brotherhood chooses to remove that person from the [fraternity] because there are processes in place to actively remove someone from the brotherhood, should the fraternity be punished as a whole? Or obviously the individual would be referred in a Criminal Justice sense, but is the fraternity at fault?
President Pollack and University Assembly Chair Duncan Cady also discussed the national implications of abolishing Greek Life at Cornell.
Online and Media Response
Following the initial IFC suspension, the Cornell Daily Sun ran a guest essay titled “Abolish Greek Life”. In it, graduate student Pegah Morandi lamented the alleged assaults, arguing that “no amount of training can fix what is endemic to Greek life as an institution. Racism, misogyny and rape culture are inherent to Greek life, and have been since its founding.” The opinion represented the Sun’s first article on the subject since the original news report on the suspension.
Many voices on social media were extremely negative, with many commenters immediately blaming fraternity “rape culture” and “rape apologists.” One November 6th, 2022 Reddit post by u/sodium-funny-hehe called for the release of precise addresses and fraternity names, alleging that “daddy’s money is stopping criminal charges from being pressed and identities from going public.”
The comments section on another Reddit post on the issue devolved into a debate about Cornell’s actions, with many believing that money had a lot to do with the issue. One commenter theorized that the publicity of the incidents might provoke unusually strong action from Cornell:
Whether or not you like frats (I don’t particularly) they do bring in a good sum of money for Cornell via wealthy alumni donations from former frat members and their families… and so Cornell is naturally hesitant to upset them unless they really have to.
Now that this incident has made the news, it’s actually hitting a pain point for Cornell. This kind of news can seriously hurt Cornell’s applicant numbers, as parents discourage their children from applying to colleges that were in the news for sexual assault incidents. Fewer applicants means fewer wealthy applicants so this will also hurt donations in the long run.
Interviews with John Yerger and William Shaw
Some voices were supportive of the interim suspension, but had some reservations. In December, the Cornell Review reached out to Alumni IFC President John Yerger ‘82. Yerger affirmed that “sexual abuse and violence have absolutely no place in Cornell’s Greek System (or anywhere else) and must not be tolerated, accepted or ignored…We have not accomplished enough until this no longer exists anywhere. ”
Regarding the the IFC Suspension of fraternity events, Yerger wrote:
I completely supported the immediate pause on fraternity social events that the Cornell IFC implemented while the scope and magnitude of this complaint were being determined. My understanding is that as the scope has been determined, initial actions have been taken with any organizations allegedly involved. We support that process and appreciate that there are continuing investigations.
Yerger thought the pause on social activity was justified insofar as it allowed Cornell to adequately assess and respond to the situation. However, Yerger stressed that a continued suspension was unfair to those uninvolved in the incidents.
I do not support continuing to punish students or organizations that were not involved nor associated with these complaints, whether they are members of other fraternities, sororities, athletic teams or any other student organization, for that matter. This is a serious issue and won’t be resolved by trying to find someone to blame; and it goes beyond any one group or organization. What we need is a campus-wide effort to eradicate sexual assault and violence. I believe that the Greek community can be, should be, and wants to be one of the leaders in this effort.
Yerger’s comments address some of the problems of group accountability. Cornell’s blanket suspension of fraternity events punished all fraternities, regardless of whether or not they were involved or associated with the alleged assaults. It also assumed group guilt for what seems to have been a series of crimes committed by individuals.
Thus far, Cornell has not publicly identified any person or organization suspected of committing the crime. The only connection established by Cornell between the crime and fraternities was the setting: “off-campus residences affiliated with registered fraternities.” And yet, the university President publicly lambasted all of Greek Life for a seemingly provincial incident.
To further investigate the issue of group accountability, the Review conducted an extensive December interview with William “Bill” Shaw ‘69, a retired attorney and former Mayor of Ithaca (1982-1983).
The Shaw family has been deeply involved in Cornell for generations, with well over a dozen attending Cornell over the years. Bill is the son of Milton “Jack” Shaw ‘34, who served as Assistant Director and then Director of Housing and Dining at Cornell from 1939-1972, and Director of Real Estate at Cornell after 1972.
Bill Shaw obtained a Bachelors in Government and History, a Masters in Public Administration, and his Juris Doctorate from Cornell, graduating in 1973. He is an alumni of the Delta Upsilon Cornell chapter. As a law student, Shaw worked with the University Counsel Office, a group of attorneys that advised Cornell.
Shaw worked directly with then-President Dale Corson, and was involved in the creation of the Campus Code of Conduct, (as well as the University Assembly) which governed Cornellians until 2021, when it was replaced with the Student Code of Conduct. Shaw went on to serve as a general practitioner in Ithaca for decades, representing many Cornell students and fraternities over decades of practice.
Asked what he thought about Cornell’s response to alleged druggings and assaults, Shaw expressed disapproval, saying Cornell “hadn’t even commenced investigations before it took the presumption of innocence away and [employed] guilt by association.” He stressed how little President Pollack could have known about what actually happened.
All [President Pollack] could have known was allegations over a period of four or five weeks. And five instances. So we don’t even know if they’re connected. First of all, we don’t know if they’re true. How would somebody necessarily know?
In particular, Shaw excoriated President Pollack on her remarks on the issue:
When the president of the university made her statement, just a couple days after… she couldn’t have known. There wasn’t time for her to have had the investigation. In addition to that, she has deans and associate deans to investigate these matters. These people are competent, for the most part. They’re paid, they’re expected [to know]. They have resources to investigate. They have the authority to require people to come in and answer questions. Let them do their job, not jump to conclusions. That is simply wrong and it should be condemned. And I’m condemning it. There should be time for sorting out the facts.
Besides the times and approximate locations of the alleged incidents, very little is known. Shaw wondered if blood tests had been taken to verify the druggings and questioned how much blame could justifiably be placed on the allegedly connected fraternities.
Keep in mind, sometimes [a crime] occurs at a fraternity just because two people were at that house. That’s where they live. That’s where you lived for a while. Does that mean that your fraternity did or didn’t do something? We don’t know till we investigate that. It might have been a single incident. And I’ve represented [situations] where it occurred within a fraternity room, but it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the fraternity itself.
A fundamental question is when should an organization be held responsible for the action of individual members. To illustrate the issue, Shaw compared two scenarios, one occurring at a fraternity but in the privacy of a brother’s room, and one being a fraternity-sponsored crime.
You go upstairs to your room with a friend, male or female, I don’t care. And you engage in some illegal activity up there. Back in the day, you smoked marijuana or you inhaled something. Or let’s make it serious. You put roofies in the drink and gave it to the other person. That occurred in your fraternity having nothing to do with the [fraternity] event.
Now the reverse of that would be the inference and that’s all it is. One or more people put some sex drugs, roofies… in like a punch bowl. Made it available to everybody. Now that’s a group activity that is horrifically bad, horrifically bad, and should be absolutely investigated to the hilt.
Group Accountability
Cornell’s on-campus judicial system allows for teams, clubs, and Greek houses to be charged with Student Code violations. Cornell has no public criteria for when an organization rather than just individual members should be held accountable.
If an organization, such as a club, team, or fraternity is brought before the on-campus system, the “preponderance of the evidence” standard is applied. Whatever the criteria is for holding an organization responsible, the complaining party must show merely that it is more likely than not that the offense happened, rather than proving beyond a doubt that the offense occurred.
Another problem is how to punish an entire organization. Offending individuals might be expected to perform restitution, pay a fine, write a reflective essay, do community service, or be suspended or expelled from Cornell. The suspension or expulsion of organizations seem to be the most common for groups.
Yet, organizations’ student membership turns over at least once every four years, so the people being punished are students who were not at Cornell when the violation occurred. Further, many organizations’ assets represent the fundraising from several generations of Cornell alumni. Thus, a suspension or expulsion of a fraternity punishes the alumni just as much as the current membership.
The reliance on group punishment is a worrying trend in Cornell’s enforcement scheme. Many Cornellians will remember the serial arsonist on North Campus last January. Less known, perhaps, is that Cornell threatened all Ganędagǫ residents with “community billing” if the perpetrator did not cease his activities. “If destructive behavior continues and those at fault do not come forward, we will implement community billing for damage done,” said University Vice President Ryan Lombardi in a university email. Notably, Cornell has not publicly pursued group accountability for organizations that may have sponsored or incited the disruptors at the Ann Coulter event.
More than two months after last semester’s horrible alleged crimes, Cornell’s Greek Life still remains in limbo. With no word from university officials, officers of Cornell’s many Greek organizations—especially those with no connection to the original incidents—are at a loss. Just as in November, the only thing to do is await word from Cornell’s vast bureaucracy.
The Cornell Review is committed to covering this story completely and in its full depth. As such, please stay tuned for future articles investigating the ongoing fraternity drama at Cornell. The Review wholeheartedly denounces the alleged crimes described in Cornell’s emergency alerts and hopes that the perpetrators are brought to justice swiftly, fairly, and publicly.
