The second half of today’s episode involves sexual assault and drug use; it may be inappropriate for some listeners and distressing to others. If you or someone you love has been sexually assaulted or abused, you can get help 24/7 at the RAINN Sexual Assault Hotline.
We began this segment with an October 1 press conference, where New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced that she has asked Attorney General Letitia James to intervene in a case of alleged sexual assault on the campus of Cornell University in 2024.
Our theme music this week is “God Is A Girl” by W&W and Groove Coverage, copyrighted music licensed from LickD.
Sign at southern entrance to Cornell University's West Campus. Photo credit: 颐园居/Wikimedia Commons
In the News:
* A New York Times team continues to dig into grifting at the Department of Homeland Security under former Secretary Kristi Noem. When Noem was on her way out the door, she authorized payment to a campaign donor for hundreds of millions of dollars to purchase planes the department never needed—and has not used. Daedalus Aviation flipped planes to the government at markups of at least $20 million. This highlights what a boondoggle the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant campaign has been. Among other things, DHS spent $2.85 million for a tent city at Guantanamo that was never used; and $4.8 billion for warehouses in Chicago, never converting them into detention facilities as planned.
* Republicans are burning money in Texas Senate as James Talarico pulls ahead of Ken Paxton in that Senate race. A New York Times/Siena poll shows Talarico ahead by 6 points, two weeks before early voting begins. President Donald Trump has campaigned in Texas three times in the last month: in leaked audio, Paxton has admitted that he is no longer controlling his strategy. In a surprise twist, Paxton’s estranged wife Angela is now campaigning for him.
* In addition to predicting that the Democrats will take the House, The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter estimates that Democratic candidates will ultimately pick up anywhere from 2 to 6 Senate seats. Kansas just joined Alaska, Maine and Ohio as toss-ups: Democrats need four to regain the majority.
* Pioneering televangelist Jim Bakker has died at 86, leaving five children and a second wife, Lorri Bakker. Preaching a gospel of prosperity, Bakker is best known as the husband of Tammy Faye Bakker with whom he built and operated the PTL (Praise the Lord) empire, a highly emotional Assemblies of God ministry that changed the industry. At one point, it included a popular television show, a theme park, and a private satellite broadcasting network; at one point, the Bakkers brought in $129 million a year. It all came crashing down in 1987 when Jim Bakker admitted that he had had an affair with a 21-year-old secretary. Fellow evangelist Jerry Falwell claimed that he had proof Bakker had erotic relationships with men as well.
Your hosts:
* Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller.
* Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024).
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Flyer advertising the first anti-rape speak out, organized by
New York Radical feminists in January, 1971
News focus: Neil and Claire discuss the revived investigation of gang rape at Cornell—what happened, what it means, and why this might have happened decades ago. Because guess what? It did.
* On September 21, the Cornell Daily Sun ran an editorial under the headline “Cornell Won’t, We Will” in which they named seven men disciplined by the university for participating in what a former Cornell student, Jane Doe, asserts was a 2024 gang rape at the Chi Phi fraternity house.
* Here is a timeline of events leading to a civil suit filed by Jane Doe against Cornell and the seven men she has accused. Here is Cornell’s official statement about the case and Tompkins County D.A. Michael van Houghton’s official statement about the case.
* Late last week, New York Governor Kathy Hochul directed Attorney General Letitia James to re-open the case as a special prosecutor. Meanwhile, the Cornell Board of trustees has retained former Justice Department official Sally Yates as an independent investigator.
* Critical features of the case are that the encounter began as consensual, and then became non-consensual; that Jane Doe’s alleged assailants drank, used ketamine, and insisted that she do so as well; and that Jane Doe only gradually became aware of what had happened, and reported it three weeks after the fact. During that window, she also exchanged friendly texts with two of the men—none of these things are unusual in a sexual assault case. In addition, the 100-page summary of what Jane Doe told campus police was boiled down to a 6-page report that did not include her statement that she was raped. Based on this attenuated account, Ithaca prosecutor Matthew van Houghton declined to prosecute or investigate further.
* President Michael Kotlikoff responded to the Cornell community’s outrage this week by telling the campus community that he would “take a serious look” at the role of Greek organizations on campus. The Cornell faculty senate has prepared a vote of no-confidence in the administration.
* Campus activism has escalated: this week vandals wrote phrases like “Smash the patriarchy” and “At Cornell rapists are protected protesters are expelled” on a campus administrative building and smashed several windows. The reference to expulsion is linked to harsh discipline the university imposed on pro-Palestinian protesters. Twenty student organizations rallied in Ho Plaza on Monday; campus organizers, including the NAACP and Cornell Black Students United, brought activities on campus to a halt on Wednesday.
* Jane Doe has received an upswell of solidarity across the country similar to the #MeToo movement. She has also been attacked by prominent conservatives, including Megyn Kelly and conservative influencer Matt Walsh.
* One named assailant has sued Cornell to have his name removed from the lawsuit, asserting that he is innocent and that the university violated its own procedures when it disciplined him.
* The case has drawn comparisons with the Duke Lacrosse case, in which three members of the team were accused of raping a stripper they had hired for a party. They were ultimately exonerated amid charges of prosecutorial misconduct.
* Those of us with very long memories also remember the 1983 case at the University of Pennsylvania, in which a half dozen members of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity raped a woman who was high on LSD. Anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday wrote a book about it, Fraternity Gang Rape: Sex, Brotherhood, and Privilege on Campus (New York University Press, 1990),in which she revealed that sexual assault was woven into the culture of the fraternity itself and that members viewed these practices as bonding rituals.
What we want to go viral:
* Neil loved Vassar English professor Pasquale S. Toscano’s essay about teaching a historical religious text, “Why My Gen Z Students Are Fascinated by the King James Bible” (New York Times, October 4, 2026). Neil talks about his own realization as a student that the Bible he had grown up with was the key to understanding so much of Western Culture; as a teacher, he loved Toscano’s presentation of the Bible as a text produced by group work over time, an example of slow, collaborative, enduring creativity in a moment of fast-paced cultural change.
* Claire wants you to read (or listen to) Evan Gershkovich’s This Cursed Beautiful Land: A Russian American Story (Crown, 2026), about the Wall Street Journal reporter who was imprisoned in Russia for almost 16 months. Arrested on trumped up espionage charges in March 2023 for the purposes of an international prisoner swap, Gershkovich shows how his love for Russia, his parents’ country of origin, already cultivated in the time he had spent there, deepened and grew in prison.
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