Opinion & original essays
By Aaron B. Faulk.
Aaron B. Faulk responds to The New Yorker's coverage of the Cornell Seven case, the circulation of the disputed list, and scrutiny of fraternity reputations.
An opinion essay examining Rob Shuck's history at Chi Phi and the culture and boundaries normalized by fraternity leadership.
Opinion & Commentary
Ruby Cramer's sympathetic portrayal of former fraternity members, Adam Ford's aggressive legal tactics, and the extraordinary failure to scrutinize the original viral list deserve a public reckoning.
Original publication: Cornell Seven (opens in a new tab)
A young woman alleges that she was drugged, sexually assaulted, and humiliated inside Cornell University's Chi Phi fraternity house. Her case has resulted in university disciplinary findings, expulsions, a civil lawsuit, and national outrage. She has since endured death threats, intimidation, and a terrifying swatting incident involving her family. Yet somehow, amid this unfolding nightmare, The New Yorker found considerable room for two former fraternity members to tell readers how progressive, inclusive, and protective of women their fraternity supposedly was.
I find that editorial decision absolutely appalling.
Ruby Cramer's October 14 article, The Doxing of Jane Doe, documents the survivor's suffering in disturbing detail. But it also offers former Chi Phi members identified as B. and T. an extraordinary opportunity to rehabilitate the image of a fraternity now associated with some of the most horrifying sexual assault allegations to emerge from an American university in recent memory.
One describes himself as progressive and an ally. Readers hear about Chi Phi's supposed commitment to diversity, its reputation among women, and members who allegedly intervened when others behaved inappropriately. Another describes a fraternity culture supposedly cautious about sexual harassment.
What a remarkable public-relations opportunity. Former members of a fraternity at the center of a national scandal get to reminisce about how wonderful and respectful their organization once was, while Jane Doe's allegations describe a fraternity environment in which a woman's presence was advertised to brothers using vile, sexually degrading language.
These men may sincerely believe their accounts. Their graduation dates are relevant to determining whether they belonged to the specific 2024 Snapchat group. But their nostalgic descriptions of Chi Phi are not an independent assessment of its culture, and they certainly do not erase what Jane Doe alleges happened after they left.
I expected more from Ruby Cramer. As a woman writing for a publication that has long positioned itself as a champion of progressive values, I expected her to use her platform to challenge the fraternity culture and institutional failures surrounding Jane Doe's allegations, not devote such extraordinary attention to helping former fraternity brothers rehabilitate the image of Chi Phi. Women who come forward with allegations of sexual violence already face extraordinary obstacles to being heard, believed, and protected. Watching a female journalist at one of America's most prestigious publications give these men such a sympathetic platform while Jane Doe continues to endure threats and intimidation is, in my opinion, a profound disappointment and a staggering failure of editorial judgment. I expected more from Cramer in defending the dignity of women confronting sexual violence, not in giving fraternity brothers an opportunity to defend the reputation of the very institution at the center of this nightmare.
This is particularly outrageous against the backdrop of what is happening across American campuses. Just this week, another woman reported a sexual assault at a fraternity house near the University of Chicago. At Colorado State University, a former student has filed a lawsuit alleging rape by a former fraternity member and negligence involving Phi Delta Theta. These are separate cases with distinct facts, but together they demonstrate why the scrutiny of fraternity culture is urgently necessary. Women are coming forward with serious allegations, and institutions are being forced to confront longstanding questions about safety, accountability, and the protection of students.
Meanwhile, I apparently warrant significant attention because I made a sarcastic Threads joke about burning a cease-and-desist letter.
Here's some context Cramer's article never adequately explores: When CornellSeven launched, I had approximately 22 followers on Threads. During that same first week, the disputed list of alleged Chi Phi Snapchat members was already viral across social media. Based on the activity I tracked, posts circulating that information had attracted nearly one million combined shares and interactions before my account developed any meaningful following. Cramer's own reporting describes a single TikTok that eventually approached two million views.
The list was already everywhere. Large accounts were circulating it, including personalities with audiences numbering in the millions. Its distribution was not initiated by me, its original audience was not created by me, and I did not publish the original circulating list on Threads or X.
Even more astonishingly, the article acknowledges that the original list remains online and continues accumulating views. Yet Cramer never meaningfully investigates social media posts that publicly credited self-described investigative journalist Troy Raymond Barile-Simleness with compiling the list. Whether that attribution was accurate warranted investigation, not silence. How does a national magazine examine the consequences of a viral list without establishing who compiled it, who first distributed it, and how its earliest amplification occurred?
Instead, readers receive an account of my website, a former description labeling information as verified, and my sarcastic cease-and-desist comment. Cramer characterizes my repeated explanation that I did not originate the list as though emphasizing that distinction were somehow suspect. I emphasized it because it is demonstrably central to the chronology. A journalist should not make a subject sound evasive for insisting on a distinction that the journalist's own reporting supports.
Then there is attorney Adam Ford, whose approach to CornellSeven has involved legal threats and accusations I regard as unnecessarily aggressive and unsupported by the evidence presented to me. Ford contacted me demanding that individuals be removed, and I complied. I did not drag his clients through litigation or wage a campaign against them. Yet the resulting narrative gives his representations considerable authority without showing readers independently authenticated Snapchat membership records establishing every claim made on his clients' behalf.
Ford appears remarkably eager to treat graduation dates as conclusive answers to questions that require considerably more evidence. But graduating from Cornell does not necessarily mean someone's involvement with Chi Phi ends. Consider Robert Shuck, whose extraordinary history with the fraternity was documented by GQ and the Cornell Daily Sun. Shuck spent years living inside the fraternity house, later served as a chapter adviser, and subsequently held leadership within its Chapter House Association. His history demonstrates that fraternity relationships can extend well beyond ordinary undergraduate enrollment. None of that establishes that Shuck—or any particular graduate—belonged to the October 2024 Snapchat group. But it does expose the weakness in treating graduation as definitive proof of nonmembership. A diploma is not a Snapchat membership record, and an attorney's cease-and-desist letter is not a substitute for one. If Ford possesses independently verifiable evidence establishing his clients' absence from that specific group, that evidence deserves consideration. What I will not accept is the expectation that his representations must be treated as established fact simply because he threatens legal action.
I am also deeply troubled by the apparent imbalance in investigative priorities. I have seen no publicly documented accounting of efforts by Ford to trace the original compilation and viral distribution of the list. That does not establish that no such efforts occurred. But it leaves a glaring question about why so much legal attention has been directed toward a later publisher when the original distribution remains unresolved and the list itself reportedly continues to circulate.
There is something profoundly disturbing about watching this controversy become a battle over fraternity reputations while the survivor's own account threatens to recede into the background. Jane Doe says she was treated as though her body existed for the entertainment of fraternity members. Cornell's disciplinary process resulted in expulsions. She has reportedly been threatened and terrorized for coming forward. No amount of sympathetic recollection about Chi Phi's supposed progressive values should soften the seriousness of those facts and allegations.
I founded CornellSeven because those allegations disgusted me. As a father, I could not imagine my daughter enduring what Jane Doe describes and then facing further intimidation for seeking accountability. My website was created to scrutinize the allegations, the available evidence, and Cornell University's institutional response—not to invent a viral list that already existed or orchestrate harassment I neither encouraged nor directed.
I will correct information when warranted. I will not apologize for scrutinizing publicly available fraternity records or demanding accountability from powerful institutions. And I certainly will not allow an attorney's aggressive correspondence or a magazine's selective editorial emphasis to rewrite the chronology of how this controversy began.
The New Yorker had the responsibility and resources to examine the original list's circulation, its enormous audience, and the public leads concerning its compilation. Instead, it devoted substantial space to two men's descriptions of their former fraternity, their reputational distress, and my conduct as a website publisher. Cramer had every right to tell their stories. I have every right to regard the editorial balance as deeply misguided.
Jane Doe deserved more than to have the national conversation diverted toward polishing a fraternity's reputation and scrutinizing the sarcasm of a publisher who started with 22 followers.
The original viral list deserves investigation. Ford's factual representations deserve the same scrutiny he demands of others. And The New Yorker's editorial judgment deserves to be challenged publicly, especially when its reporting supplies the very chronology that undermines the impression created by its emphasis.
Because the real scandal has never been my Threads following, a cease-and-desist joke, or the discomfort of powerful institutions facing public scrutiny.
It is what Jane Doe alleges happened inside Chi Phi, what Cornell did in response, and what she has been forced to endure since seeking justice.
That is the story I refuse to let anyone bury.
Opinion & Commentary
“Truth Dishonesty, Honor Contempt, and Personal Integrity Corruption.”
Original publication: Cornell Seven (opens in a new tab)
The allegations surrounding Chi Phi should not be examined as if this fraternity never had issues. Public reporting dating back more than two decades raises serious concerns about the culture that Chi Phi’s own alumni leadership has tolerated and uplifted.
In 2005, GQ profiled Rob Shuck, then a 31-year-old Cornell undergraduate who had enrolled in 1993 and had spent over a decade living in the basement of the Chi Phi fraternity house. The profile portrayed Shuck’s extended undergraduate life as something of a campus legend. His annual birthday celebration had grown into a 150-person wine tour centered heavily around drinking. Shuck also openly discussed having dated an 18-year-old Cornell freshman the previous year, when he was 30. He acknowledged that their age difference eventually became an issue. It begs the question, how many other teenagers did this adult attempt to groom?
Two years later, the Cornell Daily Sun reported that Shuck was still taking classes and still living in Chi Phi’s basement at age 32, roughly thirteen years after first enrolling at Cornell. By then, his prolonged fraternity lifestyle had become so well known that he had been featured in GQ, appeared on The View, and become the subject of a short documentary titled 32 Yr. Old Frat Boy. Once again, this grown adult man’s behavior was being glorified. It was as if they didn’t want us to realize how incredibly creepy it was for him to be living in a house with teens and young, immature, vulnerable adults.
This history matters because Shuck did not simply fade away as an eccentric former fraternity member. In 2006, while he was still a longtime undergraduate, the Cornell Daily Sun identified him as Chi Phi’s chapter advisor. Years later, Cornell records identified him as president of the Chi Phi Chapter House Association. Today, Chi Phi’s own website lists him in that same leadership position. The Chapter House Association says it advises the active chapter, handles operational matters, represents undergraduate interests, and acts as the primary alumni interface between Chi Phi and Cornell.
That progression is what deserves persecution. A man who spent more than a decade embedded in an undergraduate fraternity environment and publicly discussed dating a freshman half a generation younger than himself should never be glorified. Shuck became nationally known for refusing to grow up and act his age. Chi Phi leadership should have forced him out. They never should have condoned this behavior. He never should have been placed in a position of authority over the chapter.
None of that proves that Shuck knew about or participated in the conduct alleged in the current lawsuit. It does, however, raise a legitimate broader question: What behaviors has Chi Phi historically considered as acceptable? What kinds of boundaries has its leadership chosen to normalize?
What else has this fraternity done that Chi Phi was able to sweep under the rug? My opinion is that this case is only the tip of the iceberg and we are soon going to unravel much more than we ever expected.
Chi Phi’s own national risk-management policy now states that the fraternity will not tolerate or condone sexually abusive behavior and requires members to respect the dignity of others. When an organization has to publicly adopt those standards, its past and present leadership are fair subjects for persecution. That is not only for what they prohibit on paper, but for the culture they have cultivated in practice.