The View hosts are weighing in on the reopened investigation into an alleged gang rape at Cornell University—and Sunny Hostin says the case is being covered “inaccurately” and “unfairly.”
Cornell is facing backlash after a former student filed a civil lawsuit alleging she was drugged, assaulted, and gang-raped by seven fraternity members in 2024. A leaked fraternity group chat reportedly showed members being invited to participate in the alleged assault.
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While the hosts condemned the messages, Hostin emphasized that the men have not been criminally charged or convicted.
“The pictures of these young men who have not been charged, not been adjudicated, are being plastered all over the internet,” she said. “I think people are reporting this story inaccurately. I think they’re reporting it unfairly. And while this is something that we have to take very seriously, there is no way, according to her statement in 2024, that any prosecutor would have brought forth a case.”
Drawing on her experience as a former federal prosecutor, Hostin explained that the woman reportedly said she had voluntarily consumed alcohol and snorted ketamine, raising questions under New York’s consent laws.
“Under New York law, voluntary intoxication or drug use that merely impairs judgment, does not legally constitute an inability to consent to sexual activity,” Hostin said. “Right, so that means if you voluntarily ingest drugs, you voluntarily take alcohol, you can agree to have threesomes, which, in her statement, she agreed to have two separate threesomes.”
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Alyssa Farah Griffin agreed that Hostin was technically correct about the law but criticized the law itself.
“How can the law protect and argue that somebody who, we know when she arrived had had 10 drinks, how could you — this is the law, Sunny is absolutely right on this — how could you possibly consent?” she asked. “How could you possibly be in a decision-making space? My issues is with the law there.”