Latest / SHeCOMMERCE / Episode 44: The Cornell 7 - More Than Tea. It's Accountability.

Transcript

Episode 44: The Cornell 7 - More Than Tea. It's Accountability. · SHeCOMMERCE

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to SheCommerce.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Normally, when it's just the two of us, this is where things get a bit unfiltered.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: There's probably some sparkling tea involved, definitely some laughs, certainly opinions.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, always lots of opinions.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: You can count on that.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Unsolicited opinions too.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's basically our business model.
• 0:34
  unknown: Yeah.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: But today is different.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: There is a story that is dominating headlines and social media right now that we felt we couldn't just scroll past.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: And while SheCommerce is usually a place where we can laugh and chat about other things going on in the industry, tackling some pretty big issues, we feel like this one deserves a different kind of conversation.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: Completely.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: And before we go further, a content warning.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to be talking about allegations of sexual assault, drugging, and rape involving a former Cornell University student.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: If that isn't something you want or need to hear today, protect your peace and skip this episode.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Please.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and we also want to be really intentional with our language here.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: We know that there's an active investigation ongoing, and these allegations contain uh a civil lawsuit.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: We're obviously not judges here, we're not in a courtroom, we're not formal investigators, but we um we definitely want to have a discussion about it, but we're not here to determine guilt.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: But what we can talk about is what this story breezes about consent, accountability, power, institutional responsibility, and the culture we're creating for the next generation.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that feels very she commerce.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: So let's start with what we know.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: In September, a former Cornell student referred publicly as Jane Doe filed a civil lawsuit stemming from an incident at Cornell's Chi Phi, or is it Chi-Phi?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's Chi-Phi.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um Okay.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'll start that sentence again.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: In September, a former Cornell student referred to publicly as Jane Doe filed a civil lawsuit stemming from an incident at Cornell's Chi-Phi Frat House in October 2024.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: The lawsuit alleges that she was given alcohol and drugs, including ketamine, and sexually assaulted by multiple men while she was incapacitated.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Seven current or former Cornell students were named as defendants.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: And part of what made this story explode almost two years later is what happened, or I guess arguably didn't happen after she first recorded it.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: She went to the Cornell University Police back in 2024.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: The case was initially not prosecuted.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Cornell conducted its own Title IX investigation, and the university now says that process ultimately resulted in expulsions and suspensions.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Cornell has pushed back on the viral narrative that the only punishment was essay writing.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: But there are still big questions about how the case moved through the system and why law enforcement didn't initially pursue charges.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: And now that story has changed dramatically.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: So, Jackie, the part that I keep coming back to isn't even one individual decision.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's so many things that have kind of snowballed.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's the number of systems involved here, it's the university, campus police and their role, uh, district attorney, the fraternity, and maybe Greek life in general, a student culture, potentially dozens of people who knew pieces of what happened.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: At some point, you have to stop asking, like, who screwed up, and start asking, how can this many layers exist and someone can still fall through literally all of them?
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: 100%, Christina, 100%.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because organizations talk about values.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: Every company has them on a wall, every university has them on a website, integrity, respect, safety, inclusion, belonging.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: But values are words when nothing is at stake.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: The real test is what your organization does.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Excuse me, is what your organization does when protecting a person.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um that makes it uncomfortable, expensive, reputationally damaging, or legally complicated.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's it.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Culture isn't just like you said, words is not just a mission statement.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's what happens when there is something you would rather not deal with, but you step forward and you live into those rules.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's one reason this has struck such a nerve, well beyond Cornell University, because women understand the calculation that can happen before someone even reports something.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: In their head, they're going through all those scenarios, all those, all those questions.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Will they believe me?
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Did I wait too long?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: What did I drink?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: What was I wearing?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Why did I even go there?
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Why didn't I leave?
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Why didn't I stay with my friends?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Why didn't I say something right away?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then suddenly we're dissecting the behavior of the person saying she was harmed rather than asking whether someone harmed her.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: Every single frickin' time, Christina.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: And this particular case has also reopened an important conversation about intoxication and consent.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Being intoxicated is not consent.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: Going to someone's room is not consent.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: Previously consenting to something is not permanent consent.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: Previously consenting to something and that morphing into something larger, um, more explicit, more vile, more expansive is also not consent.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: Flirting is not consent, and consent to one person or one act is absolutely, like I said before, not consent to everybody and everything else that follows.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: That should not be controversial.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: Full stop.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: Completely agree.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's another piece here that I think people people in leadership need to stick with.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: And that is um institutions often become very good at process.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Was the policy followed?
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: Was the correct form completed?
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: Who had jurisdiction?
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: What technically could and could not be done?
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: These things do matter.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: Do process matters, but process cannot become a hiding place from responsibility.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: No, it shouldn't.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: And because there's a big difference between saying we complied with our process versus asking, did our process actually protect people?
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Those aren't the same question.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: And Governor Patchol has now publicly questioned how the original investigation was handled, including whether that critical information from Jane Doe's statement ever even reached prosecutors, prosecutors, which is crazy to think about.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: That should bother anyone who leads an organization, not because we know what happened in that room.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, we weren't there and the truth is still coming out, but because systems that are supposed to surface the truth only work if information actually is allowed to move through them.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's the ultimate leadership question.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: When something terrible happens inside your organization, are you going to try to understand what happened?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: Or are you trying to understand and manage your exposure?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because people can feel that difference.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, they can.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And protecting the institution at the expense of trust almost always costs the institution more eventually, anyway.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe not tomorrow, but certainly eventually it will.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.im Jane Doe in solidarity with her.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that tells you this story has moved well beyond one campus and well beyond one case.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because for a lot of women, and we were talking about this literally uh a hot minute ago, you don't have to have lived this exact experience to recognize pieces of it.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: Every single woman out there knows somebody that has had a situation similar to Jane Doe.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: Every single woman, including us, we know the process, the buddy system.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: Text me when you get home, send me your location, don't leave your drink, don't walk by yourself, watch your friend, pretend you're on the phone.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: Women learn this language incredibly young.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: They learn to have to protect themselves and make themselves smaller from predators.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's their fault.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: And as mothers raising daughters, that's the part that I think hits us differently.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: We want our daughters to be smart, right?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: We want them to eyes wide open, understand what the risks are.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't want the entire burden of preventing sexual violence handed over to girls.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's just our responsibility to be better, to be more aware, to be smarter.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: We spend enormous energy teaching young women how not to become victims.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: But there needs to be at least as much energy, I would argue, more teaching young men not to victimize someone, not to participate when you know someone else is, not to enable it when you might see the signs of it or see a vulnerable woman or girl kind of falling into those, that trap, that lore.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: And not to stay silent when another man does cross the line, no matter what, no matter how close you feel to him, or what fraternity you're part of, or brotherhood code you think you're obeying.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's bullshit.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where this uh, you know, this can't be a women woman telling you women issue.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: Men have got to be in this conversation.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Fathers, coaches, front rows, um, friends, managers, leaders, uh, brothers, nephews, uncles, grandpas, the guy in the group chat who sees something wrong happening and decides whether he's going to laugh, stay silent, or stop it.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: This this is not women or or or parents telling their daughters to be careful and protect themselves and you know, dress appropriately and don't be too too obvious.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: This is parents telling their their sons don't be a predator.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's as simple as that.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: Don't be a freaking predator.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: And what is consent versus is not consent?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: The gray area of consent means it's not consent, right?
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because this this silence is also part of culture, and it you stay silent and you know you're as much a predator as they are, in my mind.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: So in true she commerce fashion, we have to ask our two favorite questions.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: So what?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: And now what?
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think for me there's there's a few things.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: First, believe that allegations deserve to be taken seriously without abandoning the due process.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Those ideas are not mutually exclusive.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: We can protect the rights of the accused and still investigate someone reporting sexual assault with urgency, with competence, with humanity.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: But the point is we still need to follow that through with due diligence.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: Second, stop confusing compliance of process with leadership, whether you're running a university, a company, a team, a community, a you know, a group of some sort.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Technically, we follow the process, can't be the finish line.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: And third, stop making women solely responsible for preventing violence against women.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: This is a man, this is an everyone issue.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe especially a man's issue.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, 100%, Christina.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: Mine, mine would be accountability, not internet vigilanteism or trial by TikTok, but real accountability.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: Investigate what happened, follow the evidence, hold people responsible where the evidence supports it.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: And equally important, look hard at the systems that were supposed to work and ask why people have lost faith in them.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because institutions don't rebuild trust with statements, they rebuild it with action.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: And we need to see some action here.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is crazy that we're still having these conversations and we have to worry about this.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: But this obviously wasn't our typical she converse episode.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: No lightning round, no tea to spill, and no clever punchline here to wrap it up.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: Some conversations don't need one.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: They don't, exactly.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: But our platform has always been about giving women a voice, calling out uncomfortable truths when they need to be called out, and challenging the systems around us to do better, please.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes that means the conversation might not be as fun.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: It might make some people uncomfortable, some people might not want to listen, but that's okay.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: It just matters.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: And to anyone listening who has experienced sexual assault or sexual violence, please know that there are organizations and confidential resources available to support you.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: We'll include those resources in the episode notes.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: And as this investigation continues, we'll be watching what happens next.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: Not because this is internet drama, but because accountability matters, as Jackie mentioned, safety matters, and women's voices matter.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: Always.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: Both brands.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: Fierce women.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: One sisterhood.