The Cornell 7: Seven Men. One Woman. Ketamine. A Group Chat. And A DA Who Declined To Prosecute. The Full Story.
Only 230 out of every 1,000 sexual assaults in America are ever reported to police. Of those, 46 lead to an arrest. Of those, 9 get referred to prosecutors. Of those, 5 lead to a felony conviction. 5 out of 1,000.
In this episode -- the most important Past Present Pushback has ever produced -- XO, AZ, and CDA go through three cases that expose everything wrong with how this country handles sexual violence. Current: LSU student Kendall Francis says a football player raped her on October 18, 2025.
LSU's own Title IX process found him responsible for sexual assault AND forcible rape. His punishment was reduced on appeal to two years of probation without restrictions. He was allowed back on the football team. No criminal charges have been filed.
Recent: The Cornell 7 -- seven Ivy League fraternity members accused of drugging a 20-year-old woman with ketamine and gang raping her over several hours in October 2024.
A group Snapchat allegedly invited other fraternity members to join. The DA initially declined to prosecute. The case only reopened after the victim filed a 101-page civil lawsuit in September 2026 that went viral.
Historical: The Central Park 5 -- five Black teenagers from Harlem interrogated for 14 to 30 hours without their parents, coerced into false confessions, convicted with no DNA evidence, imprisoned for 6 to 12 years, and exonerated in 2002 when the real perpetrator confessed. Donald Trump spent $85,000 calling for their execution.
He has never apologized. All three cases. All the statistics. All the trauma. And the question our community has to answer: what does justice actually look like?
Keywords: LSU sexual assault 2026 Kendall Francis, Cornell 7 case gang rape lawsuit, Central Park 5 Exonerated Five full story, sexual assault statistics America, rape PTSD trauma effects survivors, college campus sexual assault, Title IX failures universities, false accusations Black men wrongful conviction, what survivors of rape need, justice system sexual assault, Past Present Pushback podcast
RESOURCES --
National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) -- Available 24/7
RAINN online chat: rainn.org
Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741
Innocence Project (wrongful convictions): innocenceproject.org
When They See Us (Netflix, 2019) -- Ava DuVernay's miniseries on the Exonerated Five
The Central Park Five (2012 documentary, Ken Burns)
