Jared Hoffman '15 graduated from the school of Arts & Sciences with a degree in Information Science. He can be reached at jaredhoffman77@gmail.com.
Editor's Note: This article discusses sexual assault and hazing.
The goal of hazing a new Chi Phi member, at least back in 2012, during which I — as a scrawny freshman pledge — endured months of physical, emotional and psychological damage, was to break the young man.
In the last hours of the process, sleep-deprived and physically exhausted, I was blindfolded and tossed onto a sheet flinging me up and down. It was there, for the first time in my life, that I was sexually assaulted. It happened quickly: hands reached under the waistband of my basketball shorts and slathered fistfuls of spicy ‘mung’ all over my genitals. I felt shock and pain. ‘Mung’ consisted of cold oatmeal, vinegar, hot sauce and cayenne pepper. It burned and smelled and I screamed bloody murder. A few minutes later, I was given a half-gallon of milk to wash off my spicy junk. Then I was blindfolded again, made to crawl on my elbows and knees on hard wooden floors and pressured to solve a riddle that, as it turned out, had no actual answer. Finally I collapsed. I was set in a coffin and lowered through a trapdoor into a secret chapter room where I was officially inducted into the fraternity.
Every pledge at Chi Phi went through a similar process. I don’t know if all of them were sexually assaulted the way I was, but I suspect that many, if not most, were.
Now that Cornell’s Chi Phi chapter has become national news, I can’t help but see a connection between the way I was initiated, and the way the ‘Cornell 7’ allegedly gang-raped Jane Doe.
I started living at Craigielea, the now infamous Chi Phi house on Edgemoor Lane, as a sophomore in the fall of 2012.
I made posters for the house’s “Great Fratsby” party and designed our Slope Day tanks. But inside, I was ashamed of my vulnerability and unable to articulate or process the pain I was in. I accepted the fraternity’s offerings of access to drugs, alcohol and girls, along with the social license to frame addiction as valor and sexual conquest as glory.
Even then, the Greek system was under pressure. The 2011 death of 19-year-old sophomore George Desdunes at Sigma Alpha Epsilon had put the administration on its toes, ready to pounce at the fraternities. But the system survived; and the gossip was that Cornell would never ban the houses, because Greek-affiliated alumni disproportionately donated to the school’s endowment fund.
Research seems to back up the idea. Cornell does not publicly report Greek affiliation in its giving data, but a 2005 survey, along with studies from other universities, suggest that fraternity and sorority affiliation is indeed linked with an increase in donation dollars.
In 2019, freshman Antonio Tsialas died after drinking heavily at a fall rush event and tumbling down a gorge.
Now, there is Jane Doe.
When something terrible happens, the University typically sanctions an individual house and/or individual fraternity members. But, by letting the Greek system continue to function as a whole, Cornell enabled a culture of secrecy, lawlessness and abuse to persist. In doing so, it has put student safety at risk.
For years after college, I fought depression and addiction. Today, with more than a decade of reflection and years of therapy bills behind me, I can see how the cycle of violence that men and boys force on one another binds us to silence and shame. This is a dark room to drop into and it’s here that violence begets violence.
The Chi Phi Xi chapter was banned in 2024. The house stands vacant.
What should be done with the 135-year-old manor? It could be transformed into a library or a co-ed dorm. Or, it could be demolished.
Whether you prefer reform or revolution, what is clear is that Cornell is in a unique window of opportunity. Campus officials, students and alumni will never be more strongly incentivized to change the Greek system than at this moment. Now is the time to act.
Once the overgrowth of violence, hazing and abuse is cleared out, new social conventions will have the space to flourish.
We can build a new house on that land by the gorge.
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