#MeToo is back – thanks, largely, to Cornell University. A former student, identified only as Jane Doe, alleged in a civil suit last month that seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity drugged and gang-raped her in October 2024. Most of the subsequent social media outrage blurs a few distinctions. Prosecutors looked at her initial 2024 police statement and decided not to file charges. Cornell ran its own Title IX process. The county DA says the new civil lawsuit is “dramatically different” from what she told police at the time – as her original statement suggested she consented, and that when she raised concerns, the men stopped. The 2024 statement recounts Doe participating in three ketamine-fueled threesomes with four men, while three others burst into the room and snort ketamine off her naked body. The DA has since reopened the case and sent it to a grand jury, which could bring charges.
You would not know much about what Doe told the police initially from the social media clamor around the story – which centers on some vulgar but not incriminating Snapchat messages between the fraternity members, and how few of them were solely disciplined by having to write essays. After news of the civil suit broke, the Cornell Daily Sun newspaper decided to name the seven men it accused. Since then, Instagram, TikTok and X have been awash with outrage. People are being encouraged to call Cornell University and complain. At least one of the seven has been fired from his job at a North Carolina bank. A man unfortunate enough to share a name with another of the seven has been harassed online. On TikTok, mothers are filming themselves hectoring their male children about sexual assault, to broadcast that they’re not raising rapists. “Remove their heads in a public setting, it’s the only answer,” declares one Instagram post featuring the fraternity brothers’ faces, that has 200,000 likes.
Yet the events of the days that followed the night of the October 19, 2024 party merit consideration. The New York Times has more than 1,000 pages from Cornell’s internal investigation, which tell a broader story than the civil lawsuit or viral rage would suggest.
The first threesome of October 19 involved Doe, Jonathan Newell and Matthew Ingalls. Two days after the party, Newell texted Doe to apologize as he and Ingalls “had been too drunk and high to shut things down.” Doe responds that “none of the sexual part was illegal.” On the same day, she informed her sorority “big sister” about rumors circulating that she was a “slut.” Per the Times, “the big sister… told investigators that Jane Doe added with a laugh that ‘unfortunately they are true.’” Another two days pass, and Doe tells Ingalls that “everyone knows” about their encounter, and that this was “RUINING my life temporarily.” Despite the campus chatter, Doe was eager to attend Chi Phi’s Halloween party. Ingalls assured her over text that she was still welcome. The Chi Phi fraternity president then called Doe to disinvite her, and tells her it was for her own good. She texted Ingalls: “Yall aren’t my friends. Yall are covering your asses.” On November 3, Doe wrote to another of the seven, and expressed for the first time that much of what had happened on October 19 was “not consensual.” Five days later, Doe reported a sexual assault to police.
You might pore over the text messages between these twenty-somethings and think, “why is this a national news story?” Yet now, thanks to the public outcry, a grand jury will have the final word on the criminal question. But this is exactly the kind of evidence the first wave of #MeToo taught us to look at, and most of the outrage is ignoring it.
Newell’s apology also points to a double standard. He says the men were too drunk and high to control the situation. One was reportedly so drunk he threw up and passed out during the act. Could he legally have consented to sex? Had a woman been that drunk, few would claim that she could. So why is it different when it’s a man?
The Cornell story is not the start. The first rumblings of a second #MeToo wave emerged earlier this year, in Democratic politics. Graham Platner dropped out of Maine’s Senate race days after an ex-girlfriend accused him of sexual assault, an allegation he called “categorically false.” Eric Swalwell resigned from Congress and quit the California governor’s race following a social media-led campaigni encouraging women to come forward with their stories of his sexual impropriety. The investigations into him are ongoing, and his lawyer calls the whole thing “a calculated and transparent political hit job.” Neither man currently faces criminal charges; both careers are over anyway. If an accusation can get rid of a candidate faster than voters can, their adversaries will deploy it in order to do so.
Then there’s “looksmaxxing” streamer Clavicular, real name Braden Peters. He has been charged with rape in Massachusetts over a May 2025 incident involving a girl who was 17 at the time. What usually gets left out in retellings of the Clavicular tale is that he was barely older than she was, that she texted him to initiate contact and that she was even paid to be on his stream. His representative says she went to the police because he “wouldn’t pay her.”
Last month Harvey Weinstein, the man whose downfall started the first wave of #MeToo in 2017, was given another prison sentence, for 15 years, for sexually assaulting a production assistant. Unlike other men, his fate was sealed through a trial, a jury and a conviction. It seems awfully old-fashioned to decide someone’s guilt in a court of law.
So what’s different with #MeToo 2.0? On the one hand, skeptics are more willing to dig into the details than they used to be – and mainstream outlets have been more open to writing stories that challenge the “believe women” trope. On the other, the people plastering accused men’s faces all over their Instagram Stories seem more willing to ignore the facts and jump straight to a conclusion.
As in 2017, Democrats are out of power in Washington but still have overwhelming cultural influence, over academia and much of the American media. Liberal culture wars gain real traction once ordinary people are experiencing fatigue: the first #MeToo movement came during the first year of Donald Trump’s first term – when Americans were overwhelmed by the chaos of the news cycle: Russiagate, Charlottesville, the Women’s March. Today, Trump fatigue is again resurgent. There is a backlash against an administration whose policies are highly controversial and hurting most people financially. Reenter #MeToo.
Recall what happened to people who tried to voice even mild skepticism in 2017-18. Matt Damon said there’s “a difference between, you know, patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation.” The backlash was fierce enough that he publicly apologized a month later. Compare that to The View’s Sunny Hostin this week, who calmly explained why the Cornell affair did not meet the standards for a sexual assault conviction in the state of New York, despite sputtering from her co-anchors. Going by the written statement, Hostin said, Doe showed up to the party drunk, took ketamine voluntarily and agreed to two threesomes. She also pointed out that in the state of New York, being impaired by alcohol or drugs you chose to take doesn’t render you incapable of consent. The law looks at whether someone was incapacitated, for example passed out or unable to say no. Making bad decisions or regretting them later isn’t the test.
You see the same imbalance in the coverage. The story went national within days. Photos of the boys, none of whom has been charged with a crime, are “plastered all over the internet.” as Hostin put it. Yet, the New York Times was careful to obscure Jane Doe’s identity. There are good reasons to protect accusers. But when uncharged young men are exposed while the person accusing them stays anonymous, many people will make up their minds before any court has.
The Cornell case bears similarities to a number of other high-profile campus sexual assault scandals – two of which predate the 2017 #MeToo movement. In 2006, three lacrosse players at Duke University were charged with raping a woman hired to dance at a team party. The case fell apart, the North Carolina attorney general declared the players innocent (not just “not guilty”) and the prosecutor, Mike Nifong, was disbarred. The dancer eventually admitted to making the story up. Eight years later, Rolling Stone ran a story about a gang rape at a UVA fraternity. The magazine retracted it after a number of discrepancies in the woman’s account were pointed out. The magazine ultimately lost a defamation suit filed by the university’s assistant dean.
Then in 2022, rookie NFL punter Matt Araiza was accused him of taking part in the gang rape of a 17-year-old at a party near San Diego State University. The Buffalo Bills released him from his contract days later. Yet based on a witness and other information, prosecutors said he couldn’t have been involved because he had “left the party at 12:30 a.m. before the alleged rape happened.” Prosecutors never filed charges. But Araiza had already lost his gig with the Bills long before anyone looked at the evidence.
In Duke, UVA and Araiza, the truth eventually came out, each time after the damage was done. This round of #MeToo looks a lot like the last one. What’s changed is that more people are willing to call things out that don’t stand up to scrutiny.
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