3 October—Déjà vu all over again. That’s the first, natural, and obvious thing that came to an open mind when the story about the alleged 2024 Cornell gang rape hit the headlines this week.

Remember the widely and rather sensationally reported 2006 Duke gang rape? Of course not. So to refresh your memory, in that rush to judgement three Duke men, members of the university’s lacrosse team, were accused by Crystal Mangum of raping her. Crystal at the time was a student at North Carolina Central University and made extra bucks as a stripper. And she was doing her ecdysis for the guys on the night she accused them of having their dastardly way.

To cut right to the chase, then, after all the hullabaloo about sexual violence and due process on campus, among other things, it turned out that Crystal hadn’t been raped at all. She was just plain lying. But it took over a year for the Duke lacrosse trio to be officially exonerated in what came to be known as the Duke rape hoax.

It also came out that the Durham cops were at fault, including but not limited to a supervisor who had a history of picking on Duke students and offed himself several years later. And the Durham County DA resigned in disgrace before being disbarred and jailed (but only for a day) for his gross prosecutorial misconduct and criminal contempt that was politically motivated (as often is the case with prosecutorial misconduct and criminal contempt).

There were big money settlements, of course, mostly from Duke, and other succulent details you needn’t be burdened with. And the three innocent lacrosse players went on to other universities and good careers.

As for Crystal Mangum, although she had an impressive rap sheet of rape hoaxes and other crimes since her adolescence, as well as substance abuse, she wasn’t criminally charged for instigating the Duke miscarriage of justice. She didn’t even admit her guilt until 2024: “I testified falsely against them by saying that they raped me when they didn’t, and that was wrong, and I betrayed the trust of a lot of other people who believed in me. I made up a story that wasn’t true because I wanted validation from people and not from God.”

Sure. That admission was in an on-camera interview from Neuse Correctional Institution, where Crystal was nearing the end of a sentence for second-degree murder she’d committed in 2011 and was convicted of two years later. She was sprung in February of this year.

The Tawana Brawley rape hoax, on the other hand, had nothing to do with university students.

So, as non-Cornell students sing Cornell’s alma mater, “High above Cayuga’s ditches . . .”