The Glaring Double Standards In The Cornell 'Rape' Case

When everyone is intoxicated, why does the law treat only one sex as lacking agency?

Andrea Widburg | October 4, 2026

This is an abridged version of an essay that originally appeared in American Thinker’s subscribers-only newsletter, which contains unique essays from American Thinker’s editors.

Recent allegations about a 2024 fraternity party at Cornell University got me thinking about something that has bothered me for years. It bothered me during the Brock Turner case at Stanford, and it bothers me even more here.

What happens when everyone involved in a sexual encounter is absolutely blitzed? I mean seriously, grotesquely intoxicated on alcohol, drugs, or both.

When it comes to women, we have a clear rule: Intoxication can become so severe that a woman is no longer capable of consenting to sex. An unconscious woman obviously cannot consent, nor can a woman who has lost the ability to understand what is happening or communicate her wishes.

But what about the man?

That’s where we get to an ancient legal concept: mens rea, Latin for “guilty mind.” It is a foundation of criminal law. Generally speaking, committing a criminal act is not enough. For most crimes, the prosecution must also prove the required guilty mental state.

New York law recognizes this principle. Penal Law § 15.05 identifies culpable mental states including intent, knowledge, recklessness, and criminal negligence. And while New York’s first-degree rape statute (Penal Law § 130.35) does not simply say, “Rape is an intentional crime,” New York courts have recognized an intent element in first-degree rape cases.

Penal Law § 15.25 says voluntary intoxication is not a defense to a crime. “But I was drunk” does not get you out of jail. However, extreme intoxication may be considered when relevant to negate an element of the crime. Thus, in People v. Beaty, the appellate court said trial courts could consider whether intoxication prevented a defendant from forming the intent necessary for first-degree rape.

Merely being drunk is not enough. One must be seriously drunk—to the point of barely knowing what one is doing. That begins to sound remarkably like the standard invoked when a woman is said to be incapable of consent.

And that brings us to Cornell.

According to Jane Doe, she had consumed roughly ten alcoholic drinks before arriving at the........

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