ITHACA — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasted Cornell College over claims it let off a gang of scholars accused of gang rape with nothing greater than a slap on the wrist.
The lefty firebrand and potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate unloaded on college management throughout a Sunday city corridor fashion occasion — as she in contrast her personal publicity to the alleged darkish facet of school campuses as “manufacturing unit of sexual assaults.”
“I need to be clear that the tradition of rape, sexual assault, and pedophilia is protected in elite establishments throughout america, together with Cornell College,” the Bronx Democrat instructed college students from the Ivy League faculty in deeply blue Ithaca, the place Cornell is situated.
An nameless pupil filed a lawsuit earlier this month towards seven members of Cornell’s Chi Phi frat, claiming they drugged her and gang raped her in October 2024. The varsity provided the accused attackers the prospect to jot down essays to mitigate their punishment.
AOC referred to as the accusations “one of many urgent points” dealing with Ithaca as she praised the accuser — who not attends the faculty — for stepping ahead.
“The truth that she needed to lose her training and people males have been protected by an establishment and granted an Ivy League diploma as a reward — by no means once more,” the congresswoman mentioned to thunderous applause by the gang of a number of thousand.
The case has now been reopened by the Tompkins County District Legal professional’s workplace,
Ocasio-Cortez, who’s within the midst of an upstate New York swing forward of the Midterm Elections, instructed the gang she was assaulted at a celebration whereas a freshman at Boston College.
“I used to be horrified at what I noticed,” she mentioned. “What I believed that I used to be in at that time was a manufacturing unit of sexual assault.”
“It is a tradition. These are norms. These are practices,” she mentioned demanding the gang of largely college students demand change.
AOC is predicted to simply win re-election on Nov. 3 and is already setting her sights on potential bids for the presidency or for Democratic Minority Chief Chuck Schumer’s seat in two years.
A spokesperson for Cornell declined to reply on to the congresswoman’s remarks, however mentioned that the case was topic to an intensive Title IX adjudication course of and that not one of the college students’ sole punishment was writing an essay.
“Any suggestion that the college didn’t impose consequential punishments for these concerned is fake,” the Cornell spokesperson mentioned.
