The administration has shifted its enforcement of a civil rights law from allegations of sexual misconduct to issues like blocking protections for transgender students.
Page A4From§Eachthe breakfast edition — 6 October 2026
Hochul says the system failed her; its verdict on her own story is 'a bad look for her.'
As it ran on the front
How many sexual assault cases did the federal civil rights office resolve this year, against last year, under this administration? I already know. I didn't even have to dig for it this morning — I had it from a page I filled out a different day. Give me a second, I know it's in here... here. Fewer. The New York Times says fewer resolved this year than the year before, same office, same law, different list of priorities. Not fewer complaints filed. Fewer resolved. I read that twice before I believed I'd copied it down right.
I should back up, because this didn't start this week. Cornell sat on an allegation that a student was raped at a fraternity house in October of 2024, and sat on it for close to two years before anyone outside the university held a title tied to it. On September 28th a congresswoman stood at a town hall in Ithaca and used the words "culture of rape." Two days later a senator asked for "no stone unturned." On October 2nd, the student's lawyer told a reporter she was "incapable of consent" that night, and the next day the same lawyer used a different word on camera: "cover-up." I wrote both of those down on the same page, one after the other, because they came one after the other.…
…(cont) Here's the part that's new to me, the part I'm still turning over. Failed — her word, or close enough that the paper put it in quotes. I don't know what she meant by it exactly. Did she mean the campus police? The fraternity's own process? I can't tell you, I only have the one word written down. But I can tell you what ran in a column the same week, about the same woman, from a writer at a magazine that isn't short on opinions: that her own account, on its own, is "a bad look for her." Not the men's account. Hers.
So which one of those is the system the governor was talking about? Is it possible they're the same one?
I think about the toll plaza near my house on the days I'm not thinking about any of this. There's a cash lane and there's the lane with the sensor, and every so often a ticket doesn't scan and the gate doesn't lift and the car behind you lays on the horn like that's going to fix the sensor. The thing that's supposed to resolve the transaction just — doesn't, and everybody downstream of it pays for that one broken reader in time they didn't plan to spend. I don't know why I think of that lane and not another one. Maybe because "resolved" is a word I used to only hear from a parking attendant.
The same office with fewer sexual assault cases resolved this year — the paper says it changed what it spends its time on, moved its attention toward blocking protections for transgender students and away from allegations like this one. That's not me saying it. That's the sentence as filed. I just have the one question about it: is that where the hours went that used to go toward finishing a case like Jane Doe's?
Oh — excuse me, before you go. One more thing, and then I'll let you get on with your morning. The op-ed calling her own story "a bad look for her" ran on October 6th. So did the story about the office resolving fewer of these cases than it used to. Same morning, two different pages, same subject. I don't have a theory about that. I just have the two dates, and I wrote them down right next to each other, and I can't make myself cross either one out. Resolved, is the word I keep landing on — or I guess, now, the word I keep landing on is unresolved. Sorry. Same page. Different column.
“You want to know what "the system failed her" means when the same week a magazine runs a column saying her own story's the problem? That's not two things happening at once, that's one machine — slow down the cases, speed up the blame, and call the second part an opinion so nobody has to answer for it. They didn't need to lose the case. They just needed to make losing it her fault.”
“Look, nobody's saying — did I say nobody's saying? I'm not saying anything, I'm just reading you the column, which, to be fair, is protected speech, people are allowed to have takes, that's not the same as — okay, it's not nothing that it ran the same week as the enforcement numbers, I'll give you that's not nothing, but correlation isn't, you know, the thing. The other thing. I had a word for it.”
Earlier in this story
- Letitia James called compromised by the President before her appointment, by the defense after it. By Sal · the milkman edition, 6 October 2026
- Cornell needs a lawsuit, a special prosecutor on the ballot, and a no-confidence vote to hold a hearing. By Sal · the wee small hours edition, 6 October 2026
The receipts
Jane Doe's lawsuit against the Cornell 7 is on its own enough to question and doubt what she claims happened to her.
Hall housing Michael Kotlikoff’s office spray painted as demonstrators demand resignation of college president Cornell University to take ‘serious look’ at fraternities after rape allegations Mass protests erupted at Cornell University on Monday, with students criticizing officials’ handling of gang-rape allegations , demanding the…
· Jane Doe's lawyer says "she was incapable of consent" on night of alleged rape at Cornell frat house from the morgue, 2 Oct 2026
· Jane Doe's attorney accuses Cornell of "cover-up" of alleged rape from the morgue, 3 Oct 2026
· Schumer calls for review of 'horrifying' Cornell rape case: 'No stone unturned' from the morgue, 30 Sep 2026
· AOC Calls Out Cornell and 'Culture of Rape' as Prosecutors Reopen Campus Assault Case from the morgue, 28 Sep 2026
· Woman in alleged Cornell gang-rape case was ‘failed’ by system, New York governor says from the morgue, 2 Oct 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.