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The Cornell rape case has surfaced a hidden divide among progressives

Victims’ rights advocates want to make prosecutions easier. Criminal justice reformers aren’t so sure.

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The harrowing allegations of rape at a Cornell University fraternity have been rippling out in both New York state and national politics.

Democrats have tended to voice sympathy with the accuser, saying that they stand with her and other victims. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said there was “a culture of rape, sexual assault, and pedophilia” in elite institutions across the country. Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed said Cornell “protected her abusers, letting them off with a slap on the wrist.”

In the wake of the Cornell rape allegations, advocates for victims of rape and sexual assault are renewing a push for New York to close what they call the “voluntary intoxication loophole” in state law.

This proposed change would make it easier for prosecutors to argue that people can be too intoxicated to consent to sex, even if they are conscious and haven’t explicitly said no.

But this reform effort has met resistance from key parts of the progressive coalition who are skeptical of the criminal justice system; they fear new tough laws will be weaponized against minority groups and contribute to mass incarceration.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said the accuser was “failed” by local police and county prosecutors who did not bring charges, so Hochul appointed state Attorney General Letitia James to take over the investigation. Days before that appointment, James posted on social media that “what this young woman has been forced to endure is horrific and unacceptable,” adding: “To her, and to all survivors: you’re not alone. We stand with you.”

Some Republicans, meanwhile, are accusing Democrats of rushing to judgment. Saritha Komatireddy, who is running for attorney general of New York against James, said in a debate that James had “screwed this one up by prejudging it.” The investigation, Komatireddy said, “requires someone who approaches the case with fairness, impartiality and integrity.” And right-wing commentators like Megyn Kelly and Ben Shapiro have questioned the accuser’s story.

But beyond the procedural fight over this particular investigation, many Democrats have also called for changing the law to make cases like it that involve drugs or alcohol easier to prosecute in general.

This might seem like a clean issue for the party, in line with prior progressive efforts to crack down on sexual assault via Title IX and expanding statute of limitations laws.

However, it’s not so simple: According to my conversations with experts and advocates involved in these reform conversations, this is where the Democratic unity begins to fray, because of a divide between two key parts of the progressive coalition.

The impulse to create stronger protections for victims has crashed into the left’s longstanding suspicion of the criminal justice system. And as a result, a coherent policy response has been hard to craft — and may end up being impossible to get agreement on.

On one side are advocacy groups for women and for victims of rape or sexual assault. They argue that current law — in New York and other states — makes it far too difficult to successfully prosecute perpetrators, and that it should be changed. They’ve advocated for closing what they call the “voluntary intoxication loophole,” which they say makes it harder to prosecute abusers of victims who have willingly consumed drugs or........

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