American Thinker

by Brian C. Joondeph

    In the 2011 film Moneyball, Brad Pitt portrays Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane, who listens as his scouts enthusiastically praise an up-and-coming baseball player.

    Beane, unimpressed, asks a simple question.

    “If he’s a good hitter, why doesn’t he hit good ”

    This question should be asked about America’s elite universities, particularly in light of the ongoing Cornell Seven controversy.

If these institutions are, as some describe them, bastions of rape culture, misogyny, and the institutional protection of sexual predators, why do so many young women desperately want to attend them  And why are their parents willing to spend or borrow as much as $100,000 annually to send their daughters into these allegedly dangerous environments

    The Cornell Seven controversy has sparked extensive publicity, protests, political brinksmanship, and accusations that Cornell and other elite universities perpetuate a culture of sexual violence.

    Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, speaking in Ithaca in September, declared that “the culture of rape, sexual assault, and pedophilia is protected in elite institutions including Cornell University, and it has got to stop.”

    That’s quite a sweeping indictment of America’s top schools.

    In American Thinker, I recently reviewed the Cornell Seven allegations, the conflicting evidence, and the importance of due process. Those questions remain unresolved and continue to percolate, so I won’t revisit them here.

    Instead, let’s consider something wider.

    What do young women actually think about these supposedly dangerous institutions  Not what politicians or activists tell them to think, but what their choices reveal.

    Follow the applicants’ walk, not the media’s talk.

    Cornell is one of America’s most prestigious and selective universities.

    In the 2025–26 admissions cycle, Cornell received more than 72,000 undergraduate applications and admitted 8.4 percent. Nearly 36,000 of those applicants were women.

    Women also make up approximately 54 percent of Cornell’s undergraduate student body.

    Think about the irony of that in light of AOC’s comments.

    At a major university publicly condemned for perpetuating a culture of rape and sexual assault, women aren’t fleeing. Instead, they are applying in the tens of thousands, fiercely competing for admission, and enrolling in greater numbers than men.

    And they’re paying through the nose for the privilege.

    Cornell’s estimated annual cost of attendance is about $100,000, including tuition, housing, meals, and other expenses. That’s $400,000 over four years for students paying sticker price.

    Many receive financial aid, of course, but the sticker price illustrates how highly a Cornell education is valued, or at least what the market will bear.

    Cornell is not unique. Across the Ivy League, women make up at least half of undergraduate enrollment. Female students outnumber male students at every Ivy League school except Dartmouth.

    At Cornell, women outnumber men by more than 1,200 students, comprising 54 percent of undergrads.

    These universities aren’t struggling to attract women. Admission is a coveted prize, sought by plenty of high school girls.

So why the disconnect between rhetoric and reality

And whatever happened to women’s colleges

If coeducational universities are inherently dangerous for women, why aren’t women gravitating to institutions without male students

    America once had hundreds of women’s colleges. Not so much now.

    According to the Women’s College Coalition, about 230 women-only colleges existed in 1960. By 2023, that number had fallen to about 30, a decline of 87 percent.

    Some closed, others merged with coeducational institutions, and still others began admitting men. Today, fewer than five percent of female college students attend women’s colleges.

    The explanation isn’t especially mysterious.

    Historically, women’s colleges offered educational opportunities unavailable at many prestigious universities that excluded women, especially in engineering and the hard sciences.

    Once those universities opened their doors, women could compete directly with men for admission, degrees, and professional opportunities.

    And compete they did. Women now constitute a majority of American college students.

If coeducational universities are institutions where sexual predation is embedded in the culture, shouldn’t women’s colleges be experiencing a renaissance

Why aren’t parents demanding more of these schools  Shouldn’t activists be encouraging women to pursue prestigious degrees in environments without male classmates

    Instead, women have increasingly chosen coeducational institutions, including the very elite universities now accused of tolerating widespread sexual violence.

To paraphrase Billy Beane, If the schools are so toxic for women, why are they attending these schools

    None of this means sexual assault doesn’t occur on college campuses or that female enrollment disproves any individual allegation.

    Sexual violence is a serious crime, and victims deserve protection and justice. Those accused also deserve the presumption of innocence and due process.

    Both principles can coexist.

    According to the CDC’s 2023–24 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, 21 percent of American women reported experiencing completed or attempted rape in their lifetimes, and 45 percent reported some form of contact sexual violence, a broader category that includes unwanted sexual touching and coercion.

    These are sobering numbers, but they reflect experiences across society, not only on college campuses. This does not establish that elite universities are uniquely dangerous for women compared with, say, a newsroom or a casting couch.

    There’s an enormous difference between acknowledging that sexual assaults occur and characterizing entire universities as institutions that protect sexual predators.

    One is a serious problem that demands investigation and accountability. The other is a sweeping indictment of an entire educational culture.

    Sweeping indictments deserve scrutiny rather than a bobble-headed agreement.

If women overwhelmingly regarded these universities as inherently dangerous, why aren’t they applying and enrolling accordingly

    Yet the enrollment and application data suggest that women continue to apply to and attend these universities.

    Perhaps they recognize something that political activists overlook.

    A university can face serious problems without being defined solely by them. An institution can fail to prevent or properly investigate an assault without every male student being labeled a predator or every female student a victim.

    And even a deeply disturbing incident cannot, by itself, define the character of an entire university or its student body.

    Then there is the outrage industry.

    Campus sexual assault is now part of America’s debates about gender, privilege, institutional power, and social justice, and, interestingly, just months ahead of a major election.

    Politicians condemn rape culture, activists stage demonstrations, and university administrators promise sweeping reforms.

    Such declarations generate headlines and political donations, but they don’t reveal what students actually experience or how they view their schools.

    There’s an important distinction between making universities safer and portraying them as inherently unsafe.

    The former is a legitimate goal. The latter breeds unnecessary fear and suspicion, blurring the line between individual criminal behavior and institutional responsibility.

    Back to Moneyball.

    Billy Beane’s question cut through the scouts’ bloviating and returned to something measurable.

If a player is such a great hitter, why isn’t he hitting

    The same question applies to America’s elite universities.

If Cornell and similar institutions are so overrun by rape culture, why do tens of thousands of young women compete for admission  Why do they constitute a majority of Cornell’s undergraduates  And why have women’s colleges, which offer a logical alternative to coeducational campus life, declined so sharply

    These questions don’t excuse sexual assault or absolve universities of responsibility for preventing and for investigating it.

    They ask whether sweeping political rhetoric aligns with the behavior of the very women these institutions supposedly endanger.

    Perhaps young women recognize that a prestigious education offers extraordinary opportunities despite real risks. The same risk dichotomy applies to attending college in New York City versus in upstate New York.

    Perhaps they distinguish between individual misconduct and an institution’s overall character.

    Or perhaps they simply have a more realistic understanding of campus life than the politicians who speak for them.

    Whatever the explanation, their choices deserve as much attention as the political grandstanding does.

If America’s elite universities are truly the dangerous environments their critics describe, why do so many women still line up at the admissions office and write large checks to the registrar

    Brian C. Joondeph, M.D., is a Colorado-based ophthalmologist who writes frequently about medicine, science, and public policy.

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