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Today, Explained newsletter

A crisis that goes far beyond Cornell

How prevalent is sexual assault on college campuses? We don’t entirely know.

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

Today’s newsletter is a heavy one — so please feel free to skip it if you need to. But as the uproar over an alarming rape allegation at Cornell University from 2024 keeps building, I wanted to take a minute to look at the facts of the case and the wider scourge of campus sexual assault. (We’ll get into that second topic in just a minute.)

You’ve probably read about the case on social media, but if not, let me bring you up to speed. A former Cornell undergraduate student, identified as Jane Doe in a civil lawsuit filed earlier this month, alleges that seven men pressured her into drinking and snorting large amounts of ketamine, an anesthetic that can cause dissociation, before raping her at a campus fraternity house.

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At the time, she reported the incident to campus police — but her lawsuit alleges the men were never adequately investigated. Instead, the case was handled through Cornell’s administrative disciplinary system, which meted out noncriminal punishments, such as suspensions and expulsions, and permanently........

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