Jane Doe’s case against Cornell and seven former students has become a Rorschach test. One reading is that its a case of gang rape and institutional cover-up. Another reading, based on the text messages sent at the time, is murkier, messier and far less convenient for the outrage industry. These messages tell a different story from the narrative surrounding the lawsuit, and the “believe women” brigade would prefer you didn’t read them.
On October 19, 2024, Jane Doe, a 20-year-old Cornell student, attended a sorority event at Moonies Bar in Ithaca. By her lawsuit’s account, she had had about ten drinks by 11 p.m. She walked to the Chi Phi frat house to see a male friend, Matthew Ingalls. Ketamine was present. Other men came into the room.
Every accusation is a claim, and claims must be tested
The texts and transcripts that followed contain statements that sit uneasily beside the lawsuit. Asked by police whether she was comfortable with the early sexual activity, Jane Doe said: “I was super drunk… But I was pretty OK with all of this.” The next morning, a roommate says, she recounted the evening laughing:, saying, “Oh my goodness, isn’t that crazy?” and did not call it rape or assault.
Days later, Jonathan Newell texted an apology for “how things went down.” He said his memory was fuzzy and that he and another man regretted being too drunk to stop things. Her reply was not what the script required: “At the end of the day non of the sexual stuff was illegal… and honestly i really liked being w u and matt.” She said her memory was “super clouded too,” that everyone had been heavily intoxicated, and suggested they smoke together again, “but like leave out the extra 5 billion men and ketamine.”
She called the incident a “gamgbang” but wrote: “i don’t think we should feel any shame for the part. our body our choice.”
I have read many statements by alleged victims of rape. I do not recall one that used a pro-choice slogan to reassure an alleged rapist he had nothing to be ashamed of.
About a week later she read online comments about the fraternity. Only then, she told investigators, did she “come to the realization” she had been gang raped. By November 3, she was texting that “90%” of the night was non-consensual. Then, more than two weeks later, when DNA evidence was long gone, she asked for a rape kit.
Cornell’s investigation did not accept her account in full. Two men were expelled, two suspended and two found not responsible. Scott Kretzschmar says he never touched her, entered briefly and left; a hair test was negative for ketamine, and the university did not find that he had snorted it off her body. Yet online all seven are named and condemned as “the Cornell rapists.”
The original prosecutor declined to send the case to a grand jury in 2024, saying the account described voluntary conduct, contained no clear non-consent, and that when Doe asked for things to stop, they stopped.
The civil suit was filed in September; within a fortnight the seven names of the accused were published, the DA reopened the case and New York Governor Kathy Hochul, facing an election, handed it to Attorney General Letitia James – who had already called the woman’s experience “horrific and unacceptable” and said she stood with “survivors.” Two defendants want her removed, reasonably arguing she has picked a side.
None of the seven have been charged.
In later messages, Doe said she had been given more ketamine than she remembered, voiced discomfort, did not know the other men and felt “like a sex doll/worker.” Something rotten may well have happened.
But “may” is the word. The defense does not say she is certainly lying. It says her contemporaneous words differ radically from the lawsuit, and that her account changed after she read strangers’ comments. On that record, the doubt is not merely reasonable; it is enormous. The presumption of innocence exists for precisely such cases.
How did this become a national cause before a charge? Because of two words: “believe women.” This slogan began as a decent #MeToo instinct: women reporting assault had too often been ignored. But “take women seriously” became “believe women, full stop” – this is not a principle of justice but its abolition. A trial exists because we believe nobody until evidence is tested. The slogan skips that and proceeds to sentencing.
America has seen the consequences. I have investigated the Epstein scandal extensively and have written a book about it, Naked Lies. The industry around Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged crimes demanded that Virginia Giuffre be beyond question. Yet in 2022 she withdrew her accusation against Professor Alan Dershowitz, saying she “may have made a mistake in identifying” him. No money changed hands.
Giuffre also claimed abuse by the then-prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor in New Mexico. She also said she had been trafficked for the benefit of foreign presidents, then admitted in a 2016 deposition that the New Mexico episode was fiction and she had never met any foreign presidents.
In the Cornell case, the lawyer representing Jane Doe has previously advertised seeking Epstein accusers to represent. We don’t yet know who approached who. Could the accuser be lying for money?
The point is not that women lie; most do not. But every accusation is a claim, and claims must be tested. Failure to do so doesn’t help victims, it creates them: in Britain, a 17-year-old accused of rape killed himself before his accuser withdrew the allegation. His mother died by suicide the following year.
The Romans had it: ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat – the burden of proof lies on the one who asserts. It has served us for two millennia.
At Cornell, the evidence so far shows a drunken, drugged, squalid night; a disgusting group chat; a woman who said at the time that she liked it, that nothing illegal happened and there was no shame, then changed her account after reading the internet; a university that did not believe all of it; and a prosecutor who saw no case.
Believe women? No. Believe the evidence. It will never sell T-shirts, but it is the only incorruptible guide to the truth.
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