A 20-year-old Cornell student had been drinking. She was pressured into taking ketamine for the first time. Then, she alleges, seven fraternity members sexually assaulted her for hours, until nearly 6 a.m.

The central question for the case should be whether she was capable of consent.

New York knows how to define consent. Since 2015, New York State’s Enough is Enough law has required every college in New York to adopt the same, clear definition: a person too drunk or high to make a choice cannot consent.

But under New York criminal law — which will be applied here — this is not the definition that will be used.

New York’s Penal Law says that how she became intoxicated matters. If she voluntarily became intoxicated, the law’s incapacity provisions may not protect her simply because she became too impaired to consent. Under state law, lack of consent generally must be shown through forcible compulsion or a clear expression of nonconsent.

Being too drunk or high only becomes relevant if the victim was drugged without her consent or knowledge or was unconscious (or otherwise physically unable to communicate unwillingness).

This standard holds a victim’s decision to drink against her, while giving a pass to those who abuse her in her compromised state. Advocates call this the “voluntary intoxication” loophole.

Now is the time to close this loophole here in New York and around the country.

I spent five years as an assistant district attorney in Queens, where I prosecuted domestic violence and sexual violence cases. I have sat in the rooms where charging decisions are made, and I know how much a statute shapes what........

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