VICTOR JOECKS: Lessons from the Cornell 7

A lawsuit filed by a woman identified as Jane Doe alleges she was gang raped by seven Cornell University students at a Chi Phi fraternity party in October 2024. The Tompkins County District Attorney, Matthew Van Houten, initially declined to bring charges, stating Jane Doe described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious, and consensual. Text messages exchanged afterward show Jane Doe telling one accused man, Jonathan Newell, 'At the end of the day non(e) of the sexual stuff was illegal and honestly i really liked being w u and matt,' adding, 'Our body, our choice.'

In subsequent texts, she expressed shame over her destroyed reputation but wrote that 'sexuality and sex and (stuff) is changing and stuff like this is going to become more common.' She reported the incident to campus police after learning she was not invited to a Halloween party. Following the lawsuit, students protested at Cornell, and vandals broke windows at an administrative building, spray-painting 'Smash the patriarchy.'

Victor Joecks argues the vandalism's target is misplaced, describing Cornell as an Ivy League institution 'awash in leftist dogma' where liberal students outnumber conservatives by at least 5-to-1. He contends the sexual hedonism present at the university is not the result of a patriarchy but the explicit goal of modern feminism, citing Shulamith Firestone's 'The Dialectic of Sex,' which attacked the biological family and wished for the 'sexual freedom of all women and children.'

Joecks asserts that Firestone was wrong because men and women are not interchangeable and view sex differently. He writes that sex creates a deeper connection than a physical interaction, referencing the biblical concept that 'the two shall become one flesh.' He concludes that orgies are not liberating but degrading, and society should frown on them.

Sources: Las Vegas Review-Journal