Have you been listening to the Hell Gate Podcast? You can catch last week's episode here in audio and here in video.
The horrifying case of an alleged 2024 gang rape at a Cornell University frat house has led to a national outcry, massive protests on campus, and calls for New York's lawmakers to address the state's laws concerning consent and sexual assault.
In late September of this year, a former Cornell student accused seven members of Cornell's Chi Phi chapter of the October 2024 rape in a lawsuit filed under the name Jane Doe. The lawsuit details how Jane Doe also reported the incident to Cornell University Police in November 2024, days after the alleged rape occurred.
Cornell University Police, who are sworn peace officers of New York State, but private employees of Cornell University, submitted a six-page summary of the 120-page transcript of Jane Doe's interview with the department, a Title IX investigator, and a victim's advocate hired by the school, to Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten.
Van Houten declined to charge the seven men accused, citing insufficient evidence. Cornell's Title IX committee, which is supposed to ensure victims' federal civil rights are upheld, launched an investigation that levied punishment for the accused men that ranged from expulsion to writing essays.
The DA's decision to not charge the men now widely known as the "Cornell Seven" has caused furor, not least of which because of the "voluntary intoxication loophole."
Under current New York law, a person cannot be considered too intoxicated to consent to sex if they consumed the substances voluntarily, which the DA concluded Jane Doe had done in 2024, by drinking at a bar and consuming ketamine. When she reported the incident, Jane Doe said that her intoxication made it impossible for her to consent, and in her 2026 lawsuit, said that she felt pressured by the men to consume the ketamine.
Bills aimed at closing the "voluntary intoxication loophole" have floated around in the New York state legislature since 2019. One, S4555B, has even passed the Senate. But it has repeatedly stalled in the Assembly, where it has 79 Democratic co-sponsors, three more than necessary for passage. City and State reported that Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie has not pushed the bill through because of concerns that the law might have unintended consequences, and because he refuses to rely on any Republican support, preferring to pass bills with an 86-member Democratic supermajority.
But now, Governor Kathy Hochul has thrown her support behind the legislation, and the politics are changing rapidly: Speaker Heastie has opened a "working group" in the Assembly that has put the legislature on the fast track to passing some form of the bill, either by early next year or, if the governor calls an extraordinary session, by the end of this year.
On Monday, the current sponsor of S4555B, Bronx State Senator Nathalia Fernandez, spoke to Hell Gate about her efforts to close the "voluntary intoxication loophole."