Michael Smerconish: She’s counseled hundreds in sexual misconduct cases. One factor keeps coming up
Hanna Stotland • October 12, 2026
Hanna discusses the role of substance abuse in campus sexual misconduct cases and why newly surfaced text messages in the Cornell case underscore the need to wait for all the facts before drawing conclusions.

The shocking details in a woman’s lawsuit against Cornell University, a fraternity, her sorority, and (most infamously) seven of her fellow students have ricocheted through the nation. By now you have likely heard the broad strokes of the case: “Jane Doe” says she went to Chi Phi fraternity one night, quite intoxicated, and two men had simultaneous sex with her (consent for the encounter is disputed). Later, one of them posted on Snapchat that there was “free pussy” in the house. What exactly happened after that is harder to parse, but now, Doe has brought a lawsuit against multiple entities alleging that she was gang-raped and that the crime was not taken seriously by the people that should have handled it. Read the article here >











