Cornell 7: Every Statement Made It Worse but One

Hello, I'm Molly McPherson. I am your guide while we break down statements to glean the moves, the spin, and we extrapolate them. And I want to help you use them to help you spot moves in your life. As well. Right off from the start right here, the focus of today's live, uh, we are going to break down statements from the incident with Cornell. And I say incident too lightly because it certainly isn't, isn't. And there will certainly be some guardrails there. But before we start, I want to give you a point of view on here from me and why I do this. Right before I went on live today, a very, very good friend of mine called with distressing news. And I did not have the heart to say, okay, I'm going live in 15 minutes. So I had to hear it. And, you know, listening to the conversation and sharing, you know, where she felt someone was not positioning themselves or saying things in the right light, you know, she just found out there was a lot of deceit there and not because of someone trying to do it, but just from, you know, other reasons. And as I was listening, I, and I put aside, you know, my prep for this live, but this is where I want to get. A professional crisis is a personal crisis baked into it. And yesterday I'm, I was coming back from New York City. I spoke yesterday at a, at a corporate speaking event, a very well-known company that is definitely in the news, but I was speaking to a lot of their communicators. And the purpose of that talk is to share mutually with, with colleagues. And that's how I consider communicators. My point of view is one of crisis management. But not just helping people get around a crisis, it's really how to get through it. And the whole point of the talk really was about moves that we see or spend. There were some people from this company, it's a global company, that were international. And one even person asked, like, what do you mean by move? And I was very happy that they said that, 'cause I use moves all the time. And I said, that's a very good distinction. And I said, a move, you know, many could see it as positive or negative, but I look at it from a place of manipulation, machination, a move to get around something that they don't wanna face. So a tactic for that would be spin. And so someone from the audience, I do a lot of give and take, you know, in the audience, was saying, well, here's a move, and said something, you know, very positive. So it's somewhat of a neutral term. But I said, when you see it in PR or comms or statements, when it's a move that's for the greater good or a move that supports the mission of the organization, Well, then it's a strategy or it's a tactic or it's something under the mission. The moves that we look do not serve the mission. They serve the person. They're the shield for the person. And people do this for many reasons. And so in the story that I was hearing, the accounting of someone sharing why they were covering for things, it was covering for a truth they didn't wanna admit. And thankfully I have a very understanding friend, so we're gonna revisit our conversation, but this is why the importance of friendship. This is such a dear friend of mine. But also, I come to this yesterday driving back from New York City, how deeply people are affected by moves and why I do what I do. And you're going to see a subtle shift in our content here. And this is the subtle shift that you're gonna see. Yes, I'm a crisis practitioner. I fall under the wheelhouse of public relations, but when I speak, I speak to the personal piece of it. An admission, I am someone who works in crisis management and I can spot a move 100 miles away, but in my life, I missed it. I was spun. I was spun in my life. And I recognize that because that happened to me, I have such a finely tuned lens and vision now to spot it. And yes, I do it under breaking down statements, but really it's that personal piece of it. So yes, it's PR help, it's comms help, it's strategic help, But it's also self-help for you. I wanna share moves that I see, that I dealt with myself, and that other people deal with and share it with you to help you. So if you work in PR, comms, leadership strategies, this is still gonna help you. Just what I said from the stage yesterday, helping other communicators. But I'm here to share it with you so it can help in your life as well. 'Cause trust me, a public corporate crisis or one that we see play out in the headlines comes from a personal crisis. And that's what this story is today. Let's have some guardrails here. We're going to spend about a half hour going through all the statements. I want to break them down. This is a very triggering story for a lot of people. You know what happened on that Cornell campus. It's very hard for a lot of people. Yesterday I posted a reel walking from the hotel where I was watching news coverage all morning, and I don't spend a lot of time watching news coverage. And It was very interesting to see mostly a lawyer speaking on behalf of one of the former Cornell students, male students who was involved in this, listening to the spin from interview, interview, interview. And then I'd go on my phone and I thought, wow, that lawyer is working overtime. And even as I was getting ready, I could hear it. So I want to share some of that with you. I'm also going to go through other statements here from Cornell, from the newspaper, Cornell editorial. Also Kathy Hochul, Governor Kathy Hochul, and the mayor of Ithaca. So let's start breaking them down. I will tell you, everything that's happened inside that frat house is an allegation. No one has been charged with anything. There's no grand jury acted on this. And I am reading statements. I am not declaring any type of verdict whatsoever. I am not a lawyer. I study lawyer moves. I see them all the time. And when they're, when they're in a story like this, they have blinking lights on them. So let's all see it together. Okay. Now, 2 years ago, a Cornell student reported she was drugged and assaulted in a fraternity house. And this month, we're all hearing about the lawsuit. So in the 12 days since, we have the university, the DA, the mayor, the city police, and the governor Have all issued statements about the same one night. So let's read them together, one at a time. Let's look at all the moves, because something that I said on stage yesterday, nothing blows up ever. These things are the things that bubble for a long time. One of my laws in crisis management is this: every crisis starts from inside the house, inside the institution. What you see happening in the headlines, the blowup, that's not the crisis because it's definitely been there before. So this is September 21st. We are now at September 30th. So we discussed— now, do I discuss breaking news in my keynotes that should be prepped well in advance? Yeah. Prep schmep. If there's a story breaking as I'm walking on stage, we are talking about that story. Uh, so we, we talked about Cornell and people were reading the kind of the statement from the room. And I'll tell you the parts of the statement that made other corporate communicators of this company cringe out loud. All right, here we go. So September 21st, Cornell University is aware of a lawsuit concerning the deeply disturbing allegations of sexual assault involving members of the student community that occurred in 2024. So a line that they have in this statement, federal privacy law prohibits Cornell from disclosing specific information regarding individual students, and we therefore are unable to make a public statement on any other disciplinary response. I'm going to let that sit for a moment. When you read that, what are you recognizing right there? Right there in that statement, And, you know, in that statement, so it was written by Kyle Kimball. He's the vice president for university relations. That line right there, because now I am labeling everything, every move that we see. I have my laws. I follow by my crisis management laws. They are unmovable and they happen all the time. And then we have all these moves that go in here. So we are here to spot these moves. We When someone says, or when a statement from an institution says that privacy law prohibits them from saying something, that move, if we were to call it something, like let's just look at the spin of it. What's the spin on it? It's our hands are tied. There's nothing that we can do here right now. The move is a privacy shield. I know if any of you work in strategic comms like I do, I hear that Often. How many times an institution, and when I say institution, that can mean organization, association, whatever it is, they're, they're, they're under the umbrella of whatever that institution is. They will use policy guidelines all the time. NDAs. You look at the data center issue right now, and I have a lot of clients dealing with the data center issue, the amount that hide behind an NDA. Well, we can't say anything because of the NDA. That you signed. But now this is my research. And, and I should say here right now that I have spent my time looking at the statements. I, I'm not one of those content creators that knows every single detail about every single thing. I do not have the time to do that. I'm focusing on the statements and what I see in the statements. I looked up the law, so I'm trying to find the receipt from what they're hiding behind. And the receipt that I found Is FERPA, and FERPA is Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. And that isn't Cornell's only restraint. It's when you, because there's also another thing, because they are being sued. So whenever there's a lawsuit, statements, institutions, whenever it comes to making a response, they, they absolutely can restrain from saying things because they are in the middle of a lawsuit. So what they're doing is they are citing their own confidentiality policies that are, they're factoring in in this. So the choice to do this and use the rule is fair. I am going to say that, you know, there is, there is a way that they can say this that does make sense, but a federal law is not one of them. Now, this is just based on what I saw. FERPA permits, but not requires. And this is based off of a law in 1998. Federal law has allowed a college to release the name, violation, and sanction of any student found responsible for rape or sexual assault. Cornell chose not to. And here's the other piece of it. I will say, you know, when I posted a reel yesterday walking from the hotel to where I was going, and one of the most insightful comments on there that someone said on my reel was, I'm, you know, watching you. You notice, like, when you're— when I was walking, That I was constantly scanning the environment, you know, as I was walking, which I was because I was walking and talking and I needed to get everything right. So it wasn't the most responsible thing to do as a crisis manager, but I was giving a point of view about the, the lawyer. And I will talk about some of the things the lawyer said as well. And they said, you're walking like a woman, like a lot of women, even like content creators, when you do like walk and talks, they're constantly scanning. And that's true. Like when I was walking, I, I do do that because you're scanning. I remember when I was talking. I was scanning for my safety, not just so I would run into, you know, that I wouldn't run into anyone, but you do scan. And I've, and I've recognized that, you know what, as a woman, I do do that a lot. I am on high alert. How many of you feel the same way? Nikki, you saw that comment. I mean, that really stood out to me. I thought that's really insightful and said men don't do that when they walk. Huh. That, that was interesting to me. So now we have Cornell hiding behind The federal law, or not hiding, we'll say shielding. Yet September 21st, the editorial board of Cornell's own paper, and these are the people, are the one, like the editorial board behind this. And I've seen interviews with the reporters here, these student reporters, these student journalists. Incredible, uh, what they did. Here's the, the title: Cornell Won't, We Will. And the first line, they named all the people. They named the 7 students, right, right in the first, right in the first graph right there. That takes courage. So for them to come out and say it and say it, why they did it and break it down is incredible. And for, for a student newspaper to do that takes such courage when you're at Cornell and you are putting names out there. When your own institution is not doing that, your own school is incredible right there. So now we have September 28th. This is 7 days later. Cornell comes out with another statement. So Kyle Kimball from, who's the vice president of university relations. So no, this is not from the board of trustees. This is not from a president. We're still keeping the statement with the vice president for university relations. Cornell University supports the decision of the Tompkins County District Attorney to provide an opportunity for the victim story case to be heard by the criminal grand jury. Cornell also conducted a thorough Title IX investigation, which is separate from criminal proceeding, over the course of several months. During that investigation, temporary suspensions and other restrictive measures were used. So notice there, we're getting a lot of generalities there. The complainant and respondents had the opportunity to testify and present evidence. Okay, so here we go. At its conclusion, the hearing panel issued a range of sanctions, which included expulsions and suspensions from Cornell. Here we go. None of the individuals charged were offered the opportunity to write essays as a sole consequence of their involvement. Okay. End quote for a moment. Many of you, I'm sure, have heard that in a lot of the, a lot of the news coverage right now that some of the students were expelled, but some had to write essays. So I think this statement is confirming that, that they did have to write essays. In addition, the involved fraternity chapter was closed and remains barred from the campus. Okay. So here we go. Another line. So this is the last graph of the, of the release. Any suggestion that the university did not impose consequential punishments for those involved is false. A continuation of the false narrative that there were minimal consequences in this case is irresponsible, will make survivors feel less safe and supported, and will perpetuate the underreporting of sexual assault. Okay. So if we were to name the spin, let's just focus on that, that last line, continuation of the false narrative. is irresponsible and makes survivors feel less safe. Name the spin. It's, you're wrong and being wrong hurts survivors. Oh, Andrea, Andrea, can I tell you the most dangerous people in crisis, crisis management in the professional world and the personal world? The truth tellers. People do not like the truth tellers. Truth tellers are the ones that make everything fall apart, but the truth tellers always get labeled as the trolls, haters. And when we describe truth tellers, we're usually gaslighting truth tellers. The truth tellers are always the problem, always the problem. So that line in there cannot. Specifically, the statement really feels redlined. Nowadays, we don't actually have a red line. Such a shame. I remember the days where we redlined things. These statements have more than one person. This isn't just Kyle. La-di-da-di-da-di-da. But to put a line like that, I'm wondering, and I'm saying this to women out there, if you work in comms and you're writing this, your name is on this, how do you feel about writing in this last line, a continuation of the false narrative that there are minimal consequences? Consequences in this case is irresponsible, will make survivors feel less safe. As a woman, a woman communicator, could you write that if you were the VP? This is an institution using moves. These are the moves that we're looking at. It's also the blame flip. The accused institution makes the accuser the danger, and then the survivors become the shield. So the other survivors out there. become the reason why we are not saying anything or doing anything, because we have to protect future victims, potential victims out there. Wow. We don't know. So this is what we don't know. We do not know the range of sanctions. I don't, I don't know at this time. I mean, it's, it's Wednesday, September 30th, and I was looking at it this morning. So updates, I don't think we know of, of anything else. We don't know how many were expelled. How many were suspended? We don't know the details here, but here's a receipt that says this move doesn't work. Even the New York Post has a headline, quote, Cornell attacks gang rape accuser as irresponsible for SA claims. So when the New York Post is calling you out, that's, that's what the move is. So from a crisis management point of view, so when we're sitting here writing statements and I'm redlining, Ooh, 'cause I'll tell you from experience how many times I've been in a room when a statement is being written or when a party dealing with a crisis is telling me that the victim is the problem. I can tell you with certainty, it happens all the time. I can't say 100%. I want to, but I can't, but I want to. And it may not be as obvious as a victim, like in this case, this is like a true victim in the sense of like an actual victim, right? But even in the corporate sense, you know, like customers, you know, it could be money, it could be, you know, whatever. We could be talking about rebates, whatever. There are people who've been wronged. But the people at the center, if people start calling for change or they, there's that backlash, I cannot tell you how many times in these statements this blame the victim narrative. So I am not surprised at all that they came in here. You never, in statements, you never want to lie. You never want to blame. And you especially, you never ever blame the victim. They're, they're hiding behind shields here. And that's why these Cornell statements are so bad. When we were showing this, when I was talking about the statements yesterday in the room of communicators, the people who were piping in from the audience, a lot of women piping up. And one woman back left and she was talking about it. She said, I read that statement and it made me so angry. It made me so angry. There's a measuring stick. If your statement makes someone angry, it's not a good statement. So the rules that we have here, crisis manager, if Cornell called me, and I will admit, in my group chat with my girls, my gal pals, we all have different various experience in PR, strategic comms in different places, universities. So I have one friend who is a former VP of comms. I don't wanna out her, but at a, at a university of standing, I'll say. Completely appalled by it. I also have a friend whose daughter went to Cornell at this time. And from hearing it from the inside, a lot of people and a lot of, a lot of students are disturbed here. If I were writing the statement, what I would be doing is I would be giving the, I would be giving the numbers. Own it, explain it, promise it. You've got to own up to things. And explaining it is the context that you need. You need the details. Details come from truth tellers. Truth tellers have details. Use them. But do you ever notice— here's an example of something that an attorney is using. So Jeremy— I will, I will massacre this. So Jeremy's Salant— Salant— Salant presents Scott Kretschmar, one of the 7 former frat brothers named in the Jane Doe lawsuit. Okay. The lawsuit does not accuse his client of assault, but it says that he poured the ketamine on the body, snorted, posted in the group, like all the ick in the story. His client is involved in the ick. So these are some of the things that he said. So now let's break down what a lawyer is saying in this, and then I wanna hear. So listen to these statements and then I wanna hear from you. Quote, while Scott responded to and made immature comments on Snapchat, He did nothing else. Nothing. For the few minutes he was in the room with the plaintiff, Scott did not see her in duress or undress, was involved in no sexual activity, nor touched the plaintiff in any way, and ingested no ketamine. So now when we get into details, I said truth tellers have details. When you get details in an accountability statement, Own it, explain it, promise it. Own it is coming up with the accountability. Explain it are the details. That's where you want the details. Tell us, Cornell, exactly what happened with these students in the investigation. Give us details. And then promise it. That's the change. But when you get details in the middle of explaining, I did nothing— Kate says right there in quotes, I think I did nothing is my takeaway there. When we are trying to remove ourselves from guilt, that's when the details come back. But which details are we looking at? You get very specific details that sit just on the side of the truth that people want. People want this truth. So I'll offer you details, but I'm just giving you these details right here. And I'm going to hammer, hammer, hammer these details. He told TMZ that Scott was not present when the alleged assault occurred and had left after checking whether the woman was okay. Woo! Well, good on you, Scott. He point— oh, this is the one that I kept seeing him say over and over, and I, I had to get, I had to get on the road. I had, I had to walk to where I was speaking, but I, I stayed and I had to watch this one for a bit. He kept talking about the follicle test, and this is what I mean about details. This is what I mean. He kept saying his client took a hair follicle test that That says he shows Scott did not take ketamine. He said that the accuser's side knew the results before filing what he calls fraudulent action. So this lawyer sitting, I assume in his home office, which I'm not going to knock, I've, I've had bad things in the background. He has all these like discs, you know, in the background. So if you're doing all these media interviews, it was very, it was very distracting. But he kept hammering that his client didn't have it in his system. Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all. Now, there are definitely parts of Jane Doe's accusation that said what some of these guys did. And so by not having it in your system, okay, that might limit liability in other areas, but it doesn't about anything else. He was there. He didn't stop it. He was on the Snapchat thread. And I'm gonna argue, if I'm the mother of that kid, it's just as bad. Now, I don't know how many moms out there of college-age students, how many of you had a conversation? I have a daughter and a son, both college seniors, twins. I talked to both of them. I talked to my daughter about going to fraternity parties, about acceptance, about belonging, dangers for women. And then my poor son, all he wanted to do, he wanted to watch Monday Night Football with his buddies. But because I love my son, he sat and talked with me for a bit. And I asked him, Connor, what would you do? Because it all comes down to character. On CNN, he said Scott saw the free P message. You all know what that is. And went upstairs wondering, what the heck does that mean? A fraternity student. I mean, a frat bro. I don't want to, I don't want to speak poorly. I don't want to disparage every frat kid out there, but you're a kid in a fraternity. And on a Snapchat thread, someone says free the P word. And you say, ooh, I wonder what that means. We all know what it means. Why wouldn't you know what it means? Why wouldn't you know that? Then he speaks to her. She's okay. He does not see her naked. He does not engage with her. Okay. So it was determined that he was part of the Snap group and went out there and they hold him accountable for that. So I'm just reading the quote, but something tells me that was delivered in a very snarky manner. So now this is the other part that I want to add here. This is what he also adds. Quote, the plaintiff, So this is about Jane Doe. Quote, the plaintiff can peddle any story she wants, but intentionally victimizing an innocent person for a money grab is reprehensible, even if the rest of her claims against others is true. Oh, I feel that. I, I feel that. I feel that as a woman. I feel that as someone who's been on the other end of something like that, where someone is blaming you, the gaslighting there. But for a lawyer to say that Jane Doe filing this civil lawsuit is reprehensible. Oh, what is reprehensible is that statement, right, Kate? Whoa. Josephine breaking plates again. Wow. Right? You all feel that with me. You all feel that. What's the move? What's the move? Clearly. Name the move in the chat. You all know this move. Including his client in the suit was, quote, intentionally dishonest but morally repugnant. He described the complaint as showing, quote, reckless disregard for the truth and called it bogus. I'm left speechless. Blame the victim. How often do we see blame the victim? How often do we see it in press statements? How often do we see it in life? You blame the victim. I have said this now for a couple of years where I really honed in on this. Was in 2023, Lizzo, August. Marty Singer, her lawyer, you know, who blamed the dancers, blamed the dancers. Now she has been fighting this case legally and parts of the case have been dropped eventually, probably out of exhaustion too. But her entire case was built around blaming the victim. That's what these lawyers do. And so I notice lawyers doing this all the time, especially in that entertainment kind of publicist world where lawyers are acting as fixer. This lawyer. Yeah. Is acting as a fixer. That's what, that's what, that's what he's doing. It's a bulldog tactic where they're aggressive and they're bullying via the press. So bullying the victim. This was a tactic or a move, say, that worked for decades. It worked in a different time. It worked when we didn't have social media. What changes everything is social media. It is public sentiment. Lawyers, institutions want to paint public sentiment as backlash, online haters, the online mob. Does that exist? Certainly. But there are so many reasonable people here that read this and are seeing right through it. They see right through it. So I will say this as, as a crisis manager, the lawyer piece of it, I, I see it. Oh my gosh, I see it all the time. I see it all the time in my work and in the moves that I analyze. We still see it, but the question is, is it as effective? Is it? I, I, I don't, I, I don't see it as effective. And that's why when I walked out after watching the coverage all morning, that was my takeaway, is watching him work overtime. All right. So now let's move on to another statement. This, we have the DA. So now we have the DA long statement. So September 28th. And 29th. Some of the lines that we have from the DA: over the past 2 weeks, many people have called my office. Others have simply insulted and sometimes threatened my office and staff. The credibility of the woman who describes the facts in excruciating detail was never in question. Criminal prosecutions must be based upon evidence and not emotion. We'll come back to that. The decision made in November of 2024 was legally correct. And quote, I've never been contacted by Jane Doe's attorney. All right. Now those were just some of the lines because there have been, he, he actually did an interview. I was watching it yesterday on CBS Morning and I was getting ready and I only half listened to it. But at one point I stopped and went, what? Wait, what did he just say? Like the reporter was telling me things that he did not know in there. Now what, what's, One line that really stood out by me as someone who's seen this happen in real time. Over the past 2 weeks, many people have called my office. Others have simply insulted and sometimes threatened my office and my staff. I call that the wah excuse. Now, now, are people on his staff probably dealing with all the grief? Yes, there's probably truth to that. In my work, I do see this a lot. And the person at the center, let's say the leader, will say to me, My customer person service has to deal with this, and I have to deal with this, and they have to deal with this, and da da da, because they're blaming who? What, what in that statement? Who are they blaming? You. I mean, not you if you haven't called, but they're blaming the public. They're blaming the public for being appalled by how the DA handled this. Now, people insulting people in his office and staff, well, that's their job, but it doesn't mean that we shouldn't feel sorry for them. We should. Because in the beginning, I said one of these laws, every crisis begins from the inside. The call is coming from inside the house. Because if you have a crisis that leads to your staff having to pick up your, from your choices, your staff is dealing with the mess the DA made for the staff. That's not the public's fault. That's how you run the office. And I say this because I've seen this multiple times in my work. You cannot wah-wah on our staff dealing with everything. That's not the public putting the public's problem onto your staff. That's a problem you created for your staff. That's what comes with being a public servant. Taxpayers, they have a right to complain about this. They absolutely do. So what the DA is trying to do, what is the, what is the DA trying to do here? So here's one comment. DA needs to apologize to his staff, not the public apologizing to the staff. I love that. You know what? Yes, I love that, Ashley, because when this conversation comes up in my interactions in a crisis, that's exactly what I tell the leader to do. We either, we are doing an all-hands meeting, we are doing an email, we are doing something to let the staff know that you know what dumped on the staff. You've got that right. You have got that right. You nailed it. So the DA right now is gonna do whatever the DA can do to prove that he was right. Okay? So you're gonna see a lot of defensive moves here. So he published dozens of verbatim passages from the sworn statement, including the intimate ones. I read some of them. It's a hard read. I don't know if many of you read it. It is a really, really hard read. But what I don't like by disclosing The information in the statement may appear to be transparency, but is it the right transparency that we need? Because you know, the DA knows the intimate details. We don't need to read them. We don't need to read all that. He does. That's for him. That's for the investigation. When the victim is sitting in there and sharing her testimony, she's not thinking, well, one day this testimony is going to be read by Molly McPherson on the CBS— CBS 2. News website, because that's what I was doing. And how many of you who read the testimony read it, one, absolutely traumatized reading it? You could put yourself in those shoes, or you could put any female in those shoes. And you also know, like, where, if you really read it, because we cherry-pick the statements, right? Alcohol, and everyone in our community knows this in the vault. We've had Dr. Abby Medcalf on, our resident therapist, who talks about what alcohol does. With your judgment. It affects your judgment. And it also, the state that she was in because of the ketamine, she was not in the right state of mind. So we're judging, and the DA is judging these statements and the lawyer as if she were. She wasn't. It changes. It changes the weighting of this. So his spin is, well, I was right. I was right with everything I did, and I'm the one being attacked here. What's up with that? That's the spin. I've seen it. I know it. I've been in that room. He was overly defensive. He released 9 pages to prove that he was right. 9. We see a lot of language, quote, legally correct, never in question, focusing on him and the office and how his employees feel. And also, again, it's attacking the lawyer and the lawyer who represents the victim. So by attacking the lawyer, saying the lawyer's doing this to seek money and money alone. So CBS is the one— this is the quote that was said, that CBS said, was they were reading statements from the campus interview that he was not aware of. And CBS had him on camera saying, quote, that's news to me. Oops. So a statement. So this is a statement if I were in the room. Okay. If I were on the DA's beleaguered staff and I was writing a statement. In November 2024, I reviewed a signed statement and concluded charges could not be sustained. I did not independently investigate and I should have. Own it. I'm reopening the case. A senior sex crime prosecutor will present it to a grand jury. We're explaining what's happening here and the promise. I will not characterize the victim's account in public again. A statement like that is the accountability. All right. So what do we all think of the DA statement here? Uh, Angie, did you see the DA tell PBS that he thought the boys were morally wrong, but not penal code wrong? Ouch. No, I did not see that. Isn't there something that can be done to him for releasing that? No, I do not believe so. No. So this is the mayor of Ithaca. Now, Ithaca in the past, from my research, And what I've been seeing, Ithaca has always had a bit of a hands-off approach to Cornell because it's such an important part of the community. But the mayor stood up and said, no more, here we go. And again, our statements, how we like to read them, I'm going to explain, I promise it. Late last week, I learned of the heinous and sickening allegations made against the Cornell students who, according to a former undergraduate student identified as Jane Doe, Drugged and brutally raped her at the fraternity house. Despite the severity of these crimes, Cornell University administrators and police failed to contact or coordinate any response with the Ithaca Police Department. The first sentence I learned of the heinous and sickening allegations made against the Cornell students. Boom! Furthermore, the university failed to hold the perpetrators to account. This is miscarriage of justice and continues to pose a significant threat to students and residents. who may be victimized at unsafe and under-monitored on or off-campus student events. Boom. Given this appalling response from the university administration, I have no choice but to declare a new policy directive and corresponding Common Council resolution implementing an immediate moratorium on all student events and special event permits, including but not limited to Greek life and other student group gatherings, until such time that the university conducts an accounting of its protocols, prevent and prosecute crimes of sexual violence and publicly releases new standards and practices to keep our community safe. Robert G. Cantamel, Mayor of Ithaca. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Wow. So that's a, that's a really, really strong statement. That is a very, very strong statement. I mean, what is in that statement right there? That is a lot of anger. That is a lot of anger. And also noting that the incident was not reported to the Ithaca Police Department. The Ithaca Police Department learned the allegations through the media. Now, we have to still say though, that there's still some moves here that are happening because Ithaca needs to stand clear too, as well. I mean, they don't want, they don't want to get dirty hands on this as well. So the Ithaca, the mayor, they want to be the good guys too. They want to make sure that their outrage matches the public's outrage. So let's go to Kathy Hochul. September 29th. Quote, the allegations in this case are nothing short of horrifying. For any student to come forward after an experience like this takes an extraordinary courage. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. That's a good one. That's a good first line. She supports the DA's decision to reopen the criminal investigation. There are also serious questions about Cornell's campus culture and systems for prevention. This is why I'm calling for outside counsel to conduct a transparent, independent review. All right. And then Cornell is replying on September 29th. So this was yesterday. So Cornell comes in, resources and support for sexual assault and misconduct. So here's the move here. Now we're concerned. Now we're concerned. Dear Cornell community, most of you are aware of the allegations. So we're committed to sustaining community. We want to remind you of existing resources. We'll continue to examine and strengthen our policies. Find our previous statements about the incident investigation. We have all the hyperlinks. Sincerely, Anne Meinig Smalling, class of '87, chair of the Cornell University Board of Trustees. Chair's a female. And Michael Kotlikoff, president. There, we have it. Finally have the signatures from them. That is a little too late. That is a little too late to start sharing the concern there. The Jane Doe story is horrific and She says a lot of things, you know, cloudy memories, some things she agreed to, whatever. I also think you have to have the context of where she was when she was saying it, when she was reporting to it, her circumstances. But the line that matters here the most in the transcript, Jane Doe said, quote, I can say with 100% confidence I was raped, end quote. That's the only line that matters. That's the only line that matters. So where we started, Cornell started. Claiming everything was a false narrative. And now, 11 days later, Cornell's appalled by them. And now we have different people signing the statements there. So what changed? What changed? The DA splitting hairs wherever he can to say everything he did was legally correct. Don't blame me. And then when he was told by CBS that what, what Jane Doe had said, he said, that's news to me. So clearly the DA did not have the whole story either. And also that Snapchat thread, the DA said he never received it. Cornell said they sent it, the university police, and the G— and the DA said never received it. That Snapchat thread is everything. It's everything. The mayor, you know, was very forceful, very emotional. I will say I do not advise to use emotion as much in statements. They're good. You know how Kathy Hochul stated it, you know, that she's, that she's horrified. And then talking about the action, whereas the mayor was really kind of going really all in on that, you know, 'cause the mayor was really going heavy calling the students, the guys perpetrators. And so legally it got a little murky for him. There's a difference between emotion in this. When I explain it to clients, there's emotion and then there's empathy. You can have emotion about things. Mm-hmm. I just want people to understand that. But show it with empathy. Don't make it about you and your emotion, because it's not about you. Like when you make a statement all about you and all yours, it doesn't read. So that's why the mayor statement—you know—hey, forceful, good, boom boom boom boom boom. Like we are making some changes here, but feels a little like the lawyer too. Like you're you're making you're pointing and making all these claims there. You know—is that a legally smart thing to do to start labeling people as guilty? The governor, Kathy Hochul, I'll say her statement hit every note. Okay. I was horrified. Yeah. Anyone reading that testimony would be horrified. And this is what I'm doing about it. That's the difference. That's the counter from the Ithaca mayor. And the last piece of it too that I want to get in before I close here, the cornell7.org that was started. Satirist is someone who wrote for South Park, I think 7 episodes or something for South Park. Woo. That's someone doing a .org and putting all the information out there. That's a piece that gets very, very damaging. And that's why lawyers are involved, you know, as well. But this is when people in the public, they feel that they need to say something, you know, it's, it's people feel triggered because they've been there or they feel it. And then the truth tellers come in as well. All right, everyone. Thank you for sharing your, um, your opinions and thoughts on this. This is a really difficult conversation. Things are alleged. We don't know exactly what happened here, but we want to take out the moves and the spin that we see to protect, um, future victims from this because this is just, this is a horrifying story to quote Kathy Hochul on that one. It is definitely horrifying and definitely stayed with me as I assumed it stayed with you as well. All right, everyone. Thanks so much for joining me today. Thank you. Bye for now. Bye for now.