The Cornell Rape Case from 2016 Shows How Not Much Happens Even If It's Handled Better Than Jane Doe's

The Cornell Daily Sun, the student newspaper at Cornell University, published an article on February 1, 2016, that said, "A female student reported she was sexually assaulted at approximately 2:00 a.m. on Sunday, after the perpetrator led her to a bedroom." The assault occurred at the Psi Upsilon fraternity house in the early morning of January 31, when "a white male, approximately 170 pounds, around 5 feet 9 inches tall, with a medium complexion and wavy dark brown or black collar-length hair" attacked the female student. As for what happened, he lured the woman to his room, and "he then locked the door, pushed the woman against the door and tried to have sexual intercourse with her twice from behind. He is also accused of forcing the woman to have oral sex with him and pushing her onto the bed where he allegedly sexually abused her with his fingers, records show."

A Deputy Chief of the Cornell University Police Department said that "Reports like this are relatively rare in our community because sex offenses are significantly under-reported." Unlike the 2024 horrific gang rape of Jane Doe, the CUPD's referral to local law enforcement in Ithaca and Tompkins County was acted on. A warrant was issued for an arrest. Still, Tompkins County DA Gwen Wilkinson blamed "underage drinking" for rapes and sexual assaults. 

The fraternity was given a temporary suspension from any activities while this was an ongoing investigation.

By the end of the first week of February, 21 year-old Wolfgang Ballinger turned himself in to face the felony charges: "attempted rape, criminal sexual assault, and sex abuse." Ballinger was the president of the Psi Upsilon chapter at Cornell where the rape took place. (Note: I'm using "rape" because forced oral sex and penetration with fingers are rape in the way any normal human understands the word, even if legal definitions vary.) 

Ballinger's father ran the very popular music venue Webster Hall in New York City where Wolfgang worked bar. Every woman is feeling how chilling that thought is: this guy in charge of your drinks.  Because Ballinger came from money, which inevitably means lawyers throwing everything at the prosecutor to derail the case, he wasn't formally indicted until July 2016 and only for one charge, first degree sexual abuse. 

In April 2017, Ballinger took a deal where he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor of "forcible touching." In 2017, current DA Matthew Van Houten had taken over from Wilkinson, and he said that the victim "is wholeheartedly in support of this resolution." She did not want to have to go through the trauma of a trial. 

At the sentencing hearing, the woman made a statement, and you should read the excerpts in articles here and here for how the rape affected her and her family. This part really got me: "The day I went to the hospital for my rape kit, I had to first wait for another woman to finish being seen. When the nurse finally arrived at my room, she looked at me with sad, sunken eyes. ‘On average, 1 in 10 rapes are reported. That means 20 girls were likely assaulted last night because two of you went to the police today.’ I just looked back at her quietly. I didn’t feel lucky to be one of the women with the courage to come forward, I only felt grief. I am standing here today for the 18 other women that wanted to deal with their assault on their own terms.”

And this: "No matter how much money or status he has, it doesn’t let him take what he likes without consequence. Because there will be consequences. I will not stop. You cannot break me." 

Ballinger had already been expelled from Cornell, although he had started taking classes at NYU and Hunter College in NYC. He was sentenced to six years probation and given a fine, the strictest sentence allowed for the misdemeanor. His probation conditions included needing to stay away from children, relatives excepted, and a prohibition "from entering establishments where alcohol is sold 'for on-premise consumption.'" Oh, but he had an exception for his job at Webster Hall. He could still serve drinks to women there. Now, he's a "hospitality professional" who managed a hotel.

As for Psi Upsilon, the fraternity had its recognition by Cornell revoked for a 3-year period because of this case, other incident reports (including fights where racist words were flying at non-white students), and violating the interim suspension by having a party during it. And then, after an appeal, the Vice President for Student and Campus Life reduced it to 1.5 years. In an unexpected turn, the Board of Governors for the national Psi Upsilon body closed the Cornell house completely in September 2017 after a racist incident.

There you go. That's what happened when an on-campus rape allegation followed the proper process. It's pathetic, sure, but it's something, and that something is sadly reflective of the outcome of rape cases across the country. 

But here's the thing: Cornell knew what was going on at its fraternities and still let them continue. It knew how bad things were. It knew to the point that in December 2022, the Student Assembly issued a resolution "Condemning Greek Life" at the university. Among its assertions, "Cornell has a known rape culture where victims are silenced and perpetrators are often never held accountable for their actions" and "24% of undergraduate women who experienced nonconsensual sexual contact reported the most serious incident occurred at a fraternity chapter house or annex." It also mentions the 2016 case. 

The resolution didn't directly call for an end to fraternities at Cornell, but that's what should happen there and everywhere.