‘Big Victimhood’ Brings the Circus to Cornell

If you’re a leftist mercenary, chances are that if someone were to open your hallway closet, they’d find an array of props and wardrobe items:

• Your prized Palestinian flag, along with your Pride flag, your transgender version of the same flag, and of course, for special operations, your Antifa flag;
• Your keffiyeh, which is a must-have accessory for antisemitic men and women in your movement;
• A box full of whistles for when you’re assigned to harass and interfere with ICE operations; and
• T-shirts upon t-shirts for all leftist occasions.

In a box in your dresser is a stack of gift cards for Starbucks and Wendy’s, bestowed upon you by protest organizers for your commitment to anarchy. There may even be a stack of cash that found its way to you from event organizers. They, in turn, got that money from some well-funded NGOs, which got that money from some government-funded programs. Those programs got the money from some slush fund Congress created, which derived its funding from taxpayers.

If you’re a seasoned professional agitator, you know the drill. You’ve taken the training. You’ve occupied more than your share of streets, entrances to federal facilities, and big-city intersections.

You hang out with your blue-haired, tatted, pierced-up friends until you get that text on your smartphone. It tells you where to be, when to be there, and what to wear. It tells you where to pick up your signs or red bricks, depending on whether organizers want this to be a violent or semi-violent demonstration.

The rest is left up to you and your own imagination. Improvisation is encouraged. Want to gross out law enforcement and provoke it? Then urinate in this bottle and have it ready to douse uniformed police when you know they’re under orders to restrain themselves. (True story.)

Is there a chance they’ll hand you the megaphone? Have your talking points handy.

If you’re a leftist mercenary, there’s a good chance you received your text this past week to make your presence known at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. It’s an Ivy League school that the elitists at Harvard and Yale have yet to recognize, but that’s another story.

A cornerstone of the leftist movement, and this has been well-documented, is its culture of victimhood. The hierarchy within the movement often depends on how many victimhood boxes you check. A black, disabled, “trans woman” with an eating disorder checks a few of those boxes, and therefore outranks someone who simply identifies as a woman.

These days, to really rise in the ranks, you should be a card-carrying Democratic Socialist of America (DSA) member, and preferably Islamic.

One thing leftist protestors need to get straight before they get to the scene of the latest “action” is that regardless of their life of privilege to this point, they must adopt the mindset of victimhood. That’s how the left has been able to create this patchwork of misfits. If diversity is the movement’s strength, victimhood is its glue.

This is how you end up with a rally in Ithaca over an alleged gang rape at Cornell like this.

What I saw at Cornell was the Omnicause personified. At one point, a student took the mic and shouted: “Race matters! Gender matters! Sexuality matters! Class matters! Disability matters! Immigration status matters!" The rally felt like a mash-up of every left-wing causes of the last decade—from Black Lives Matter to the anti-Israel craze. Think: "no justice, no peace" chants and keffiyehs.

— Olivia Reingold (@Olivia_Reingold) October 6, 2026

If you’re not familiar with the Cornell story as it stands right now, here’s a quick summary, starting with the facts as best as they can be known, and working our way outward.

A Cornell fraternity named Chi Phi hosted a party in 2024 where a female student engaged in drunken sex with multiple male students. At the time, the Tompkins County district attorney conducted a criminal investigation of the situation and decided not to prosecute, reportedly under the assumption that the sex was consensual. The DA’s office based its findings on commentary and digital communications from several people, including the female alleged to be involved. Since investigators could not find evidence the sex was not consensual, they did not file criminal charges.

Cornell University, for its part, expelled two fraternity members, while others received lesser punishments. The school shut down Chi Phi fraternity.

Then, roughly two years later on Sept. 16, 2026, the female student involved, known as Jane Doe, filed a civil lawsuit against seven defendants and the university. She alleges, in part, that alcohol and drugs created an atmosphere which enabled rape.

Attorneys for two of the accused frat members have denied they participated in “sexual assault.” Reports are that when the school conducted its own investigation, fraternity brothers consistently said the sex was consensual.

Now, enter your favorite New York attorney general, Letitia James. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul appointed James to serve as special prosecutor in the case, which is sure to turn this into the three-ring circus that follows James wherever she goes.

So, if you’re keeping up, what we have is a night of debauchery on an elite university campus where students got drunk, took drugs, and engaged in sex. The outstanding questions are whether that sex was consensual or not, and whether the booze and the drugs played a role in an alleged rape. Again, the DA had already taken criminal charges of rape off the table.

It’s against this backdrop that leftist protest organizers have decided to mobilize their legion of “social justice warriors” and converge on Ithaca. Big Victimhood is in town.

You’ll have to forgive some of the participants if they’re not all on the same page. This leftist theater kid delivered her canned speech about the “genocide in Palestine.”

Palestinianism already is trying to hijack the Cornell 7 protests https://t.co/IsQAq0TAUo

— William A. Jacobson (@wajacobson) October 7, 2026

What does that have to do with group sex at a frat party? Really, it doesn’t. The best I can tell you is to put your movie hat on.

Oh, wait, I can tell you something a bit more strategic. You see, when Big Victimhood initiates an op, it does have a way to try to explain why so many divergent interests are involved. They call it solidarity.

Exclusively for our VIPs: How the Left Builds Its Narratives Around Imaginary Problems

This is how they might explain, for example, how a Black Lives Matter (BLM) chapter might yet decide to join a protest. In this case, while no black students were victimized, the way to shoehorn BLM into the story is to do so in the name of solidarity with the alleged victim. So, should you see BLM end up on Cornell’s campus during this current round of protests, or should you see Antifa, or the pro-Palestine antisemites alongside those Cornell students, it’s all in the name of solidarity. And victimhood. Lots and lots of victimhood.

The Cornell Sun, the leftist student newspaper, has reported that roughly 20 student groups have joined together to put on a town hall meeting to air stories and concerns about “sexual violence, accountability, and student safety at Cornell.”

The Sun reported that the town hall was “organized by organizations including Planned Parenthood Generation Action, Wanawake Wa Wari Cooperative and the American Civil Liberties Union Chapter at Cornell and co-sponsored by the Department of Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies.”

Sure, you could make the case that all of these groups are somewhat adjacent to the issues at play in the Jane Doe civil suit. But none of that explains why this Cornell student decided to make sure to wear her keffiyeh while being interviewed by Gayle King on CBS.

Cornell student wearing a keffiyeh says she feels “anger” about “unwanted sexual conduct” at the university. “It feels frustrating to be at Cornell. We feel anger here at Cornell.” Meanwhile, Palestinians carried out widespread sexual violence against women on Oct 7th. https://t.co/8ZUbL1gsed

— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) October 3, 2026

It’s becoming readily apparent that no matter what the issue, the theater kids who are the backbone of the leftist protest machine are an ensemble cast, seamlessly moving from cause to cause, using identical tactics, consistent messaging, wearing the same costumes, and sharing the same props. It’s the same SSRI-fueled people over and over again, adding extras and bit players as they go from town to town.

But the masterminds are the same. The organizers are often the same. They’ve franchised victimhood to cells across the country, ready to mobilize when they get the next text. This is Big Victimhood in action.

Reader’s Note: Find out what you’re missing behind the members-only wall. It’s time for you to take advantage of the full catalogue of common-sense thinking that comes with a PJ Media VIP membership. You’ll get access to content you didn’t even know you wanted, and you’ll be hooked. The good news is, PJ Media VIP memberships are on sale! Get 60% off of an annual VIP, VIP Gold, or VIP Platinum membership! Use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off a VIP membership!