Rep. Nancy Mace says newly released texts show the Cornell student accusing seven fraternity brothers of rape was a willing participant in a consensual encounter, not a crime.
South Carolina Republican Rep. Nancy Mace went straight at the Cornell University case late Thursday, drawing a hard line between group sex and sexual assault after messages tied to the accuser became public.
In a post on X that quickly topped 1.3 million views, Mace wrote that consensual group sex is not rape, and she framed the so-called Cornell 7 dispute around that point as reactions piled up by Friday afternoon.
The fight centers on a female Cornell student, identified in court papers as Jane Doe, who has accused seven Chi Phi fraternity brothers of raping her at the fraternity house in Ithaca, N.Y. She later sued the seven men, the fraternity, and the school. Prosecutors at first declined to file charges. After the lawsuit, New York’s attorney general was appointed as special prosecutor and the case was reopened.
Mace’s post landed after a trove of texts became part of the public fight over what happened. The New York Post reported that the messages showed the accuser chatting amiably with some of the men she later accused and telling them they should not “feel any shame.”
One message from the woman read, “Our body our choice.”
"Our body our choice,"
Other reported chat traffic was far cruder. Group messages described advertising her as “free p, y,” and one later bragged she had been part of an “eightsome.” Those details are now fuel in a case that already moved from a campus complaint to civil court and then to a special prosecutor.
Mace did not soften the point.
"IDK who needs to hear this, but a consensual gangbang is not a rape,"
That sentence is the core of her intervention. She is treating the texts as evidence of willingness, not coercion, and she is refusing to let the word “rape” cover a sexual encounter she argues was agreed to at the time.
Jane Doe first took a formal complaint to Cornell officials weeks after the alleged attack at the Chi Phi house. Prosecutors reviewed the matter and decided not to bring charges.
She then filed a lawsuit against the seven fraternity brothers, Chi Phi, and Cornell University, alleging the school failed to protect her. Only after that filing did the criminal track reopen, with the attorney general named to handle the case as special prosecutor.
That sequence matters. An initial no-charge decision, a civil suit, and a later special prosecutor are not the same thing as a tested criminal conviction. Mace is pressing the public to look at the messages before accepting the most serious label available in American law.
Thomas Giuffra, the woman’s lawyer, gave The Post a different reading on Thursday. He said his client had been in the early stages of working through what happened.
"was going through, denial, shame and ultimately acceptance."
That is the defense of the friendly texts: not proof of consent, but a victim still sorting denial and shame. Mace’s post rejects that bridge. She is telling readers the plain meaning of the messages is willingness, and that renaming a consensual encounter as rape after the fact is a category error with real costs for the accused and for the credibility of actual assault claims.
Mace is not a bystander to the national fight over sexual violence. Some 18 months before she weighed in on Cornell, she came forward with her own allegations against ex-fiancé Patrick Bryant and associates, saying she had been drugged and raped. She told Congress she found videos and photos on his phone.
In that testimony she described what she saw in stark terms, saying men had phones out “filming her as she was being raped,” and that the woman on the video showed “no movement” and “no life.” Bryant has emphatically denied her allegations. A suit he filed against Mace was tossed, her office said, as an abuse of the legal system meant to “harass and defame his victims” and “taint a jury pool” ahead of an upcoming rape trial.
She is using that history as moral authority, not as a detour. A member of Congress who has described non-consent in graphic detail is now saying the Cornell texts point the other way, toward consent, and that the law should keep those lines bright.
By Friday afternoon the post had thousands of reactions. One common attack cast her as abandoning women: “Welp, so much for your ‘crusade’ for women’s rights!” Others treated any distinction between ugly sex and rape as betrayal.
Mace’s move is the opposite of that demand. She is arguing that women’s rights, and men’s due process, both require honest language. If every regretted or chaotic encounter can be rebranded as rape once lawyers and activists enter the picture, the charge loses the force it must have for the worst crimes.
Cornell, Chi Phi, and the seven unnamed defendants now face a civil case and a reopened criminal track under a special prosecutor. The texts, the first no-charge call, the lawsuit, and Mace’s viral line are all part of the same public record. Readers can weigh the messages against the later allegation without pretending those facts do not exist.
Consent is not a vibe that can be edited later for a lawsuit. When the evidence shows adults choosing a wild night, the law should not be forced to call it something it is not.
