Lisa BrittonYou would have to be living under a rock to be unaware of the Cornell seven case. In short, a Jane Doe has accused a group of men of sexually assaulting her while she was impaired by alcohol and ketamine at a frat party two years ago. She recently filed a civil lawsuit against the alleged perpetrators, and the lawsuit instantly became a viral sensation.
So much so that national politicians have gotten involved. New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) has named state Attorney General Letitia James (D) as a special prosecutor to handle the situation. No charges have been brought against any of the men, and the situation continues to be heavily disputed.
On Tuesday, Cornell announced it would ban parties and social events at fraternity houses for the rest of the academic year in response to the scrutiny around the allegations against members of the Chi Phi chapter. That chapter was already closed and barred from campus in 2024; the national organization expelled the accused members, and the university imposed punishment ranging from expulsions to suspensions. The broad ban on every house then is really collective punishment for an incident involving one chapter that had already been shut down and faced the university’s disciplinary process.
Influential voices such as “Call Her Daddy” host Alex Cooper have used platforms like her popular podcast to criticize fraternities. In these discussions, they suggested that all-male spaces are inherently problematic, even invoking figures like Jeffrey Epstein to make their case. What’s often missing from these critiques from women is any recognition of the real benefits that come from male spaces such as mentorship, camaraderie, accountability, and personal development.
Of course, we all want women, and everyone else, to be protected from assault. That’s not in dispute here. What bothers me is the viral chatter around the story, and what that discourse has already done.
Initially, I hesitated to comment on it. Social media was already chaos, and I didn’t want to add another hot take before more of the truth was known. Online commentators are too quick to decide “guilty” or “not guilty” in cases like these.
After seeing the explosion and learning about the facts, I’m more convinced the rush to judgment will do real damage. Serious questions have surfaced about what happened inside that fraternity house in October 2024, including the gap between the account given at the time and the far uglier account in the civil lawsuit that exploded online. Yet public leaders and celebrities piled on with their statements anyway. We keep doing this, then act surprised when institutional trust gets lower and lower.
Then came the expected: Fraternities are the problem, so shut them down. Vogue published a call to eradicate them entirely. It was disheartening and completely predictable. We hear about every bad night at fraternity houses. But we don’t hear the ordinary ones.
As I wrote for The Daily Wire in August, the research on men who were in fraternities shows better outcomes later on in life: graduation, jobs, networks, friend groups, family formation, how they rate their own lives.
A recent poll of more than 1,000 young men found fraternity brothers are more likely to report positive mental health, more likely to have a male mentor, more likely to have several close friends, and more likely to spend real time with people offline. Those results do not excuse whatever went wrong in that Cornell house. But abolishing the institution of college fraternities because of bad headlines is not good for men or women.
I’ve learned a lot from the campaign Fraternities Know Men, and I highlight their work for that reason. The boy crisis is real. Male college enrollment is down. Friends are harder to come by. A concerning number of young men are struggling to find purpose.
Brotherhood is one of the few remaining ways to form young men into steady adults. We need more male spaces, not fewer, if we want men to hold each other accountable. There has to be a way to strengthen the institution of fraternities while getting serious about ending the behavior that makes the headlines.
A case like the Cornell one should prompt us to engage in hard conversations. Accountability for your behavior that runs both ways. The destructiveness of the way social media platforms encourage people to form mobs and rush to conclusions. The depravity in society today affecting both sexes, on college campuses and beyond.
If we want more engaged, motivated, and well-rounded young men, we should invest in them. Stop the blame game and give them more male mentors and role models to help guide them. Strengthen male communities to provide that sense of brotherhood, while retaining a sense of accountability for bad behavior.
This moment of heightened scrutiny gives young men in fraternities the opportunity to redefine the institution rather than let one set of allegations shape the narrative. They can create higher standards for behavior and reorient around brotherhood, mutual support, professional networks, and long-term relationships.
Abolishing fraternities will not help young men during this time of crisis. Building better ones might.
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Lisa Britton is writer and commentator specializing in issues affecting boys and men.
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