The Chi Phi Lodge at Cornell University – Public Domain
Americans are an odd lot. An increasingly accurate manifestation of the askew priorities, misplaced passions, and political impotence of the general public, particularly what constitutes something called, the “progressive left,” is the tantrum-like expressions of outrage that have come to dominate social discourse. Setting aside important concerns about the algorithmic power of villainous companies, such as Meta, X, and Tik Tok, to manipulate the attention of its millions of users, social media does provide some indication of what consumes people; what compels them to post, like, share, and comment as opposed to what elicits the sound of cyber crickets.
In recent days, the outrage Du jour is an anonymous allegation of gangrape from a former Cornell University student. The woman, through her attorney, has offered a disturbing claim that after agreeing to have consensual sex with two men at a frat party, she began to lose consciousness due to the influence of drugs and alcohol. Because she was no longer able to offer consent, the two men invited five of their friends to rape her, even allegedly announcing their intentions on a group chat. The woman reported the incident to Cornell administrators in 2024, and the university responded by suspending two of the accused, but issuing no punishments to the others. With the hashtag #Cornell7, which refers to the accused, the story quickly became a national sensation. Millions of social media users took to their preferred platforms to express outrage, denouncing not only the alleged rapists, but also Cornell University, the Ivy League, and the broad sweep of American society. In a speech on Cornell’s campus, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accused “elite institutions” in the United States of creating a culture that “protects rape, sexual assault, and pedophilia.” The NY-DC nexus, with its flagship outlets of The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and NPR, are covering the story with myopia and borderline creepy fervor. The “Cornell 7” story is big news, which in the US, as with all things, translates into meaning, a “big seller.”
If the Cornell Seven are guilty they should face long prison terms, social ostracization, and professional banishment. Their alma mater should also have to account for its leniency. All of that should go without saying, but one can already sense controversy and apoplexy with the use of the conjunction, “if.” The mores of moral panic dictate that any civilized person immediately, before any investigative work has even begun, condemn the accused and castigate the implicated institutions, ranging from Cornell to the Ithaca, New York police department. Social and political pressure is measurable by the speed with which millions of self-appointed pundits commented upon the guilt of the named suspects and the sins of their alleged “protectors.” Several elected officials, including not only Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, but also New York Governor Kathy Hochul and Senator Chuck Schumer, issued similar statements of outrage. The legal principle and old cultural saw, “innocent until proven guilty,” is hollow, steadily drained of all meaning and relevance, a problem especially when the alleged perpetrators are, generally, unsympathetic. Those eager to join the pitchfork mob chasing after vulgar and arrogant frat boys might want to consider that millions of white Americans would find seven Black men equally unsympathetic, and that millions of Christians would summarily condemn seven transgender women accused of predatory behavior. It seems unwise and unhealthy for any society to adjudicate criminal charges, especially those of a sexual, and therefore, highly emotional nature, in the court of public opinion.
The US waved goodbye to wise and healthy a long time ago. Evidence of stupidity and sickness compound on an hourly basis, but here is one gruesome story that developed around the same time as the Cornell case.
Christa Pike, a 50-year-old woman convicted of torturing and murdering her 19-year-old roommate when she was 18, was sentenced to death by the state of Tennessee in 1996. A series of appeals intended to stop the execution failed, even after the prosecution conceded that they withheld information from the jury proving that Pike had suffered horrific sexual abuse as a child. A credible diagnosis of mental illness was also a mitigating factor that the judicial system continually rejected. Finally, according to witnesses ranging from fellow inmates to correction officers and therapists, Pike has transformed into a considerate person who exerts a beneficial influence on the lives of her fellow prisoners. The Death Penalty Information Center posits that Pike’s story, “Stands in stark contrast to the common narrative that people sentenced to death are beyond redemption.”
Irrespective of whether Pike is a changed soul or a remorseless monster, the announcement of intentions to end her life by force, the preparations that such a ghastly order demands, and the resources allocated to its implementation (ranging from $62,000 to $95,000) make the Tennessee Department of Corrections, along with all those who aid their efforts, guilty of premeditated murder.
Among the co-conspirators in the attempted murder of Pike are the six Supreme Court justices who ruled in favor of her execution when the case reached their courtroom. John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett gave the court a 6-3 majority in the decision to allow Tennessee to commit state-sponsored homicide against Pike. The Christian conservative bloc likes to ramble about the “sanctity of life” during media and academic interviews, but their order of execution emphasized the “State’s strong interest in finality.” Anyone looking to gain insight into what Hannah Arendt called the “banality of evil” might want to ponder using the word “finality” as a euphemism for the meticulously planned and scheduled death of a defenseless human being.
Austin Sarat, a professor of law at Amherst College, wrote that the decision of the Republican-appointed justices was predictable, given that they are “notorious” for their “desire to ease the path to the execution chamber.” They were likely disappointed by the outcome of Pike’s punishment. She survived not one, but two shots of pentobarbital, the so-called, “lethal injection.” At time of writing, she is in critical condition after enduring what Randy Spivey, her attorney, called “chemical torture.” Making the American brand of barbarism even more bizarre, reports indicate that medical staff at a hospital in close proximity to the “execution chamber” are giving her “lifesaving care.” Will the state murder her if she continues to survive? Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, who rejected multiple clemency petitions that would have spared Pike “chemical torture,” has launched an “investigation” to determine how the trained killers so badly botched the execution. What is the ultimate purpose of the investigation – to develop more efficient tactics for murdering people strapped to gurneys? Or is to bolster the argument of US Senator Marsha Blackburn, whose ethical takeaway from the horror show is “bring back the electric chair”?
Another question for an increasingly bewildering society: Why hasn’t the hashtag, #SCOTUS6, gone viral?
The political equivalent of walking and chewing gum at the same time is possible, but one can’t help but wonder why the social media masses, mainstream press, and Democratic Party power structure ready to pounce with outrage over an allegation are barely miffed over the brazen, advertised, out-in-the-open assault and murder of a woman with no means of defending herself. It is rather obvious, judging by the multiple appeals that her defense attorney has filed, that the failed execution happened without the consent of the victim. In this case there is no need to intimate a conspiracy among the powerful. Six Supreme Court justices published proof of collaboration with the executioners. The “Cornell 7” might be guilty as Satan himself, but they’ve denied all allegations, and an investigation will have to render a judgment. The SCOTUS 6 admit to their participation in, what in the “Land of the Free” remains legal, but is tantamount to a moral crime of the worst severity. As Helen Prejean wrote in her book, Dead Man Walking, “If we believe that murder is wrong and not admissible in our society, then it has to be wrong for everyone, not just individuals but governments as well. And I end by challenging people to ask themselves whether we can continue to allow the government, subject as it is to every imaginable form of inefficiency and corruption, to have such power to kill.”
Prejean’s moral philosophy is consistent on the offense of murder, because she does not distinguish between individuals and governments. Most Americans do. It is typical of discourse and conventional thought in the US to bifurcate between the offenses of private individuals and public institutions. Never mind that private individuals lead, staff, and support public institutions; the American insistence on viewing ethics as an extension of its individualistic ethos consistently absolves offenders guilty of the most heinous acts of cruelty and corruption. It also grants them permanent immunity from consequences. No American official has ever faced minimal penalty for administering wars without justification (Vietnam and Iraq spring to mind, but there are countless more “minor” excursions, including the current administration’s aggression toward Venezuela and Iran), or enacting policies of environmental destruction, which often result in the ruination of agriculture, death of wildlife, and ill-health of millions of people.
The American inability or refusal to extend standards of private morality to public agencies and authorities offers insight into why typing the hashtag, “Cornell7,” has become second nature to millions of people, and yet “SCOTUS6” will remain obscure. It also explains, along with a good measure of cowardice, why, in a post-MeToo age of heightened focus, bordering on obsession, toward accusations of sexual assault, there is almost no discussion of the US military, where sexual assault and harassment are rampant and the accusers are often punished for reporting the crimes. Federal law prohibits victims of sexual abuse to sue the armed forces, even if there is readily available evidence proving systemic negligence or coverup. Last year, 20, 492 members of the armed services claim that they suffered sexual assault, with harassment rates much higher. No hashtag. No real interest from the press. AOC is not giving impassioned speeches about an “elite culture” that protects sexual predators on military bases. Few will question the screaming inconsistency for reasons that date back to the American founding.
In The Primitive World and Its Transformations, American anthropologist Robert Redfield dissected the “moral versus technical order,” arguing that the US fully invested in the technical, while failing to achieve significant moral “progress.” Individualism is a logical offshoot of the technical order. With its privatization of morality, it turns ethical considerations into the equivalent of an HR policy. Vine Deloria, the Native American philosopher and activist, wrote, with no small hint of vituperation, that the corporation was the “closest attempt of the white man to socialize his individualism and become tribal.” As in the insect world of HR, people face evaluation according to their ability to cooperate with institutional policies and keep business running smoothly. The policies themselves are rarely under scrutiny, much less subject to punitive disapproval.
Long after the Cornell 7 drama comes to an end, people will move onto the next salacious case -the Harvard8, the Princeton5, or some celebrity scandal – and the SCOTUS6 will endure no humiliation for their depravity. Christa Pike will be dead. Various government officials and penal system employees will plot additional murders. People will gather for patriotic ceremonies. Politicians will use phrases like “moral values.”
