Legal experts say the rape case roiling Cornell University, where Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York handed the criminal investigation to a special prosecutor on Thursday, carries striking echoes of the Hockey Canada sexual assault trial that ended in five acquittals last year.
The Cornell case drew wide attention after the woman, identified in court papers as Jane Doe, filed a civil lawsuit on Sept. 16 accusing the Ivy League university of protecting the seven men she says attacked her, now known as the Cornell 7. The suit says she was plied with ketamine and assaulted over several hours at the Chi Phi fraternity house in October 2024, and that one fraternity brother sent a Snapchat message to members at 1:42 a.m. inviting them to join, claiming there was “free pussy.” Purported replies included in the filing read “like you can walk in and whip it out.” CBS reported that a fraternity brother later texted the chat, “Shop still open?” and the answer came back “Yea.” An earlier rews account traced the anger the case has stirred well beyond campus.
No one has been criminally charged. The lawsuit says the accused received only temporary suspensions and “were afforded the opportunity to mitigate their conduct by submitting essays” to the university, a claim Cornell denies, saying some students were expelled after an internal disciplinary investigation. The Tompkins County district attorney, Matthew Van Houten, reopened the criminal investigation on Monday after intense backlash. By Thursday evening, Ms. Hochul said she had lost faith in his office and signed an executive order giving the case to the office of the state attorney general, Letitia James.
The parallels run straight to the 2025 Hockey Canada trial in London, Ont., where five former world junior players were charged with sexually assaulting a woman known as E.M. in a hotel room in June 2018. One of the men texted teammates inviting them to his room to “be in a 3-way quick.” A judge found all five not guilty. The NHL reinstated them, and one recently signed with the Edmonton Oilers. “Institutional failures, inadequate investigations, an inappropriate focus on what she did and not what they did, misunderstandings of consent — it’s all there,” said Melanie Randall, an associate professor of law at Western University who researches gender-based violence.
“It just seemed like yet another example of a group exploiting a vulnerable person,” said Karen Bellehumeur, who represented E.M. at the Hockey Canada trial. “When a group is involved, it’s particularly abhorrent.” Gillian Hnatiw, a Toronto lawyer who specializes in gender-based violence, told CBC News the similarities are more than a coincidence. Both cases involve exclusive organizations of men, she said, where it is alleged no one stepped in — “a continuation of locker room culture.”
A second thread is how juries and investigators read trauma. Mr. Van Houten said Monday that the original 2024 investigation produced no charges in part because Jane Doe’s initial sworn statement to campus police alleged no gang rape or drugging. “On the contrary, Jane Doe’s statement described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious and consensual,” he said. Her lawyer disputes his claim that she never reported a rape. Ms. Bellehumeur expects much to be made of the shifting accounts, as it was for E.M., and notes researchers describe trauma responses as fight, flight, freeze and fawn, the last being an effort to placate an attacker to get through the assault. “You figure out what you need to do to survive and get through it,” Ms. Randall said.
New York law adds another hurdle. It distinguishes sexual assault victims who became intoxicated voluntarily from those given intoxicants without their knowledge or consent; only the latter can be deemed “mentally incapacitated” and unable to consent. That makes certain rape charges harder to bring when the victim drank by choice, according to experts and advocates cited by Reuters. The lawsuit says Jane Doe had consumed about 10 alcoholic drinks before going to the fraternity house, where she says she was pressured into snorting ketamine several times, including a line off the penis of one of the accused.
The lawyers CBC spoke with said the road ahead for Jane Doe is long. “I wish the best for her, but I know it won’t be easy,” Ms. Bellehumeur said. And if the case reaches trial, Ms. Hnatiw said, the Hockey Canada verdict hangs over it: “I think it would be pretty close to doomed.”