We're gonna be in the news again

[stereax]

Apparently the Cornell community is "soul searching."  Early findings have been negative.

Why does nobody in these stories ever seem like an actual person?  Is it that even somebody with an independent will comes off like an idiot after being fed through the media post-processor, or that said idiots do exist and have an unerring sense of where interviews are being conducted and flock like moths?

Someone needs to explain to me why people think skipping class to "soul search" or whatever makes any sense.

I'd get it if like, your rapist was in the class. You know, shit like that. But you're not at all connected to the damn case, you just want to sit at home and scroll TikTok.

[Trotsky]

Someone needs to explain to me why people think skipping class to "soul search" or whatever makes any sense.

Performative.  Do a New York Times thing which costs you nothing but you can feel like you and your friends did something.  cf. Obama, instead of radical marginal income and wealth taxes; Woke, instead of Reparations and Land Back.

It's a Cornell Tradition.

[Dafatone]

Someone needs to explain to me why people think skipping class to "soul search" or whatever makes any sense.

Performative.  Do a New York Times thing which costs you nothing but you can feel like you and your friends did something.  cf. Obama, instead of radical marginal income and wealth taxes; Woke, instead of Reparations and Land Back.

It's a Cornell Tradition.

"Thirty-five percent of undergraduate ‌women reported ⁠experiencing nonconsensual sexual contact involving force or incapacitation since entering Cornell, according to a university survey conducted in 2025 and published on its website. That figure was up from 20% in 2021."

I'm not exactly qualified to speak to this, but given just how many women at Cornell have been victimized in some manner and how many more have been in situations that at least presented a threat, I'm sympathetic to students who find the current moment overwhelm or difficult, and I'm not too judgmental about how they go about navigating that.

[stereax]

Kotlikoff speaks.

[stereax]

Someone needs to explain to me why people think skipping class to "soul search" or whatever makes any sense.

Performative.  Do a New York Times thing which costs you nothing but you can feel like you and your friends did something.  cf. Obama, instead of radical marginal income and wealth taxes; Woke, instead of Reparations and Land Back.

It's a Cornell Tradition.

"Thirty-five percent of undergraduate ‌women reported ⁠experiencing nonconsensual sexual contact involving force or incapacitation since entering Cornell, according to a university survey conducted in 2025 and published on its website. That figure was up from 20% in 2021."

I'm not exactly qualified to speak to this, but given just how many women at Cornell have been victimized in some manner and how many more have been in situations that at least presented a threat, I'm sympathetic to students who find the current moment overwhelm or difficult, and I'm not too judgmental about how they go about navigating that.

I just don't understand what good it does people to skip classes over it, wasting tuition money with no clear goal.

Like, if they were protesting and took one afternoon off to do that, okay, whatever, fine. But taking the entire week off with no real reason behind it makes no sense. Do they think the classrooms have been converted into gloryholes or something? That every person on campus is going to rape them?

I just don't understand what people think they're getting from this? Maybe I was just brought up differently, but like - my grandfather died when I was in grade school and I was at school the next day. One of my friends committed suicide when I was in community college. At school the next day. Last year, one of our classmates died in a car accident. At school the next day. I'm depressed (clinically, at this point, actually) but it's not an excuse to skip school. How are these people going to keep jobs if, every time something hits the news, they take a week off to do "soul searching"?

The world keeps spinning. If you can't do the most basic thing expected of you - show up to class - because you're this worried about sexual assault, that's probably more of an indicator that something is clinically wrong with you (anxiety, OCD, PTSD) and you should seek mental health help. This shouldn't be something we encourage, for Christ's sake.

Absolutely - protest, town halls, organized activities, group meetings, hangouts, stuff like that. But larking on classes to complain to the media just feels counterintuitive.

[mike1960]

Someone needs to explain to me why people think skipping class to "soul search" or whatever makes any sense.

Performative.  Do a New York Times thing which costs you nothing but you can feel like you and your friends did something.  cf. Obama, instead of radical marginal income and wealth taxes; Woke, instead of Reparations and Land Back.

It's a Cornell Tradition.

"Thirty-five percent of undergraduate ‌women reported ⁠experiencing nonconsensual sexual contact involving force or incapacitation since entering Cornell, according to a university survey conducted in 2025 and published on its website. That figure was up from 20% in 2021."

I'm not exactly qualified to speak to this, but given just how many women at Cornell have been victimized in some manner and how many more have been in situations that at least presented a threat, I'm sympathetic to students who find the current moment overwhelm or difficult, and I'm not too judgmental about how they go about navigating that.

I just don't understand what good it does people to skip classes over it, wasting tuition money with no clear goal.

Like, if they were protesting and took one afternoon off to do that, okay, whatever, fine. But taking the entire week off with no real reason behind it makes no sense. Do they think the classrooms have been converted into gloryholes or something? That every person on campus is going to rape them?

I just don't understand what people think they're getting from this? Maybe I was just brought up differently, but like - my grandfather died when I was in grade school and I was at school the next day. One of my friends committed suicide when I was in community college. At school the next day. Last year, one of our classmates died in a car accident. At school the next day. I'm depressed (clinically, at this point, actually) but it's not an excuse to skip school. How are these people going to keep jobs if, every time something hits the news, they take a week off to do "soul searching"?

The world keeps spinning. If you can't do the most basic thing expected of you - show up to class - because you're this worried about sexual assault, that's probably more of an indicator that something is clinically wrong with you (anxiety, OCD, PTSD) and you should seek mental health help. This shouldn't be something we encourage, for Christ's sake.

Absolutely - protest, town halls, organized activities, group meetings, hangouts, stuff like that. But larking on classes to complain to the media just feels counterintuitive.

People will need to process what happened as best they can. They are young and so much about this is incomprehensible, including the role of the university.

But by all means, judge them since you know everything.

[stereax]

Someone needs to explain to me why people think skipping class to "soul search" or whatever makes any sense.

Performative.  Do a New York Times thing which costs you nothing but you can feel like you and your friends did something.  cf. Obama, instead of radical marginal income and wealth taxes; Woke, instead of Reparations and Land Back.

It's a Cornell Tradition.

"Thirty-five percent of undergraduate ‌women reported ⁠experiencing nonconsensual sexual contact involving force or incapacitation since entering Cornell, according to a university survey conducted in 2025 and published on its website. That figure was up from 20% in 2021."

I'm not exactly qualified to speak to this, but given just how many women at Cornell have been victimized in some manner and how many more have been in situations that at least presented a threat, I'm sympathetic to students who find the current moment overwhelm or difficult, and I'm not too judgmental about how they go about navigating that.

I just don't understand what good it does people to skip classes over it, wasting tuition money with no clear goal.

Like, if they were protesting and took one afternoon off to do that, okay, whatever, fine. But taking the entire week off with no real reason behind it makes no sense. Do they think the classrooms have been converted into gloryholes or something? That every person on campus is going to rape them?

I just don't understand what people think they're getting from this? Maybe I was just brought up differently, but like - my grandfather died when I was in grade school and I was at school the next day. One of my friends committed suicide when I was in community college. At school the next day. Last year, one of our classmates died in a car accident. At school the next day. I'm depressed (clinically, at this point, actually) but it's not an excuse to skip school. How are these people going to keep jobs if, every time something hits the news, they take a week off to do "soul searching"?

The world keeps spinning. If you can't do the most basic thing expected of you - show up to class - because you're this worried about sexual assault, that's probably more of an indicator that something is clinically wrong with you (anxiety, OCD, PTSD) and you should seek mental health help. This shouldn't be something we encourage, for Christ's sake.

Absolutely - protest, town halls, organized activities, group meetings, hangouts, stuff like that. But larking on classes to complain to the media just feels counterintuitive.

People will need to process what happened as best they can. They are young and so much about this is incomprehensible, including the role of the university.

But by all means, judge them since you know everything.

...I'm the same age as most of these people, dude. Don't hit me with the "oh, they're young".

How is sitting in your dorm "processing" anything? Even for depression, one of the biggest things people tell you is to leave the damn house and live a normal life. The more you isolate yourself and doomscroll, the worse it gets. You get out in the world, you interact with other human people.

And everything makes a lot of sense. The details of the case, as Jane Doe expresses them, are horrific, but everything that happened makes sense. The university keeps its processes for punishments private. It also doesn't want to publicize this stuff for obvious reasons. Also, as per one of my undergrad friends, the Cornell campus was relatively aware of the initial 2024 filings. NY has messed-up voluntary intox laws, part of why the DA didn't want to prosecute. The lack of cooperation between CUPD and Ithaca PD was another factor.

These systems generally serve to protect people who assault others. It's a well-known fact at this point. The Jane Doe case is hardly unique - similar cases happen at many campuses on a semi-regular clip. This was just the one that got turned into a media shitstorm.

I mean, the hockey world did this song and dance recently with the Canadian WJC 2018 team case, where Hockey Canada similarly enabled sexual assaults and their coverups - using parents' registration fees to pay victims to keep silent. The entire MeToo movement showed the prevalence of these things - sexual violence is used as a means to assert power.

Everyone wants to protect their ass and not be responsible for anything. Pretty easy to understand, really. You don't need to skip classes to figure that shit out. System's fucked. Even if you're working to change it, you gotta keep living your normal life.

[Trotsky]

Someone needs to explain to me why people think skipping class to "soul search" or whatever makes any sense.

Performative.  Do a New York Times thing which costs you nothing but you can feel like you and your friends did something.  cf. Obama, instead of radical marginal income and wealth taxes; Woke, instead of Reparations and Land Back.

It's a Cornell Tradition.

"Thirty-five percent of undergraduate ‌women reported ⁠experiencing nonconsensual sexual contact involving force or incapacitation since entering Cornell, according to a university survey conducted in 2025 and published on its website. That figure was up from 20% in 2021."

I'm not exactly qualified to speak to this, but given just how many women at Cornell have been victimized in some manner and how many more have been in situations that at least presented a threat, I'm sympathetic to students who find the current moment overwhelm or difficult, and I'm not too judgmental about how they go about navigating that.

Not criticizing this bunch of students, but the Spirit of the Age.  Student Protest worked, once, in the early 70s.  Since then it's been trying to recapture the old tyme religion.

If you're going to BIRG sous les paves, la plage, at least bring guns.

[mike1960]

Quote from: stereax on 10/4/2026, 12:58:43 AM.

Even if you're working to change it, you gotta keep living your normal life.
====================
Genius.

[BearLover]

I don't think anyone who attended college in the last 40 years should be surprised by this story. It is well understood that sexual assaults happen all the time on college campuses, often at fraternities and often fueled by drugs and alcohol, and the vast majority of these cases get swept under the rug or are never reported in the first place because the victim lost faith in the system. This is not a Cornell-specific story but a common story across the country.

So no, to answer a question in the football thread, the story does not affect my rooting interest in Cornell sports teams.

[mike1960]

Someone needs to explain to me why people think skipping class to "soul search" or whatever makes any sense.

Performative.  Do a New York Times thing which costs you nothing but you can feel like you and your friends did something.  cf. Obama, instead of radical marginal income and wealth taxes; Woke, instead of Reparations and Land Back.

It's a Cornell Tradition.

"Thirty-five percent of undergraduate ‌women reported ⁠experiencing nonconsensual sexual contact involving force or incapacitation since entering Cornell, according to a university survey conducted in 2025 and published on its website. That figure was up from 20% in 2021."

I'm not exactly qualified to speak to this, but given just how many women at Cornell have been victimized in some manner and how many more have been in situations that at least presented a threat, I'm sympathetic to students who find the current moment overwhelm or difficult, and I'm not too judgmental about how they go about navigating that.

Current students should be able to act and feel some agency at the school. They are deeply invested in so many ways; they can't just pick up and leave.

Others, however, will see Cornell's lack of action to the 2025 survey and simply say, I'm done here. Be well, sports fans. How do I get this account deleted?

[stereax]

Mural Jam in Ithaca was this weekend - several artists were painting murals and you could paint your own doodles on a community wall.

A couple referenced the Jane Doe situation, such as the one below - I didn't take pictures of all of them, though. If you swing by Southworks, you'll be able to wander around and see them all.

[stereax]

Activists Smash Windows, Graffiti Day Hall 'for Jane Doe'

Anonymous activists smashed a glass door at the entrance of Day Hall and painted messages on the walls of the building in response to the alleged 2024 Chi Phi gang rape at approximately 3 a.m. on Monday.

Both the top and bottom pane of the right hand door were smashed, leaving shards of glass littering the entryway and the floor of Day Hall. The messages, which read "SMASH THE PATRIARCHY" and "AT CORNELL RAPISTS ARE PROTECTED PROTESTORS ARE EXPELLED," were written in red paint on the two walls surrounding the doors.

[George64]

Crime and Punishment

[underskill]

Must be the free Palestine riff-raff with their new obsession.