A crisis that goes far beyond Cornell

Cornell University students walk through campus in Ithaca, New York. | Matt Burkhartt/Getty Images 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. At the time, she repo

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