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ANALYSIS: ‘If we live in a society today that calls me a prude for saying people shouldn’t have sex until they’re in a committed relationship, then I guess I’m a prude’
He’s not one of the so-called Cornell 7, quite the opposite.
Jared Lederman, a senior at Cornell University, actually got kicked out last month of his fraternity, Zeta Beta Tau, for writing an opinion piece that argued women should essentially be cherished and protected by men.
The piece celebrated traditional masculinity, praised motherhood, dared to argue that men and women are biologically different with different needs, and suggested modern feminism has convinced women of lies.
“The great failure of modern feminism was not in teaching us that women deserved equal dignity. It was in convincing us that equal dignity required men and women to live the same lives,” Lederman wrote. “We are not the same.”
“We have spent half a century teaching men and women that they should need each other less, and we are now living with the consequences of their obedience.”
Those prophetic words were published Sept. 15, one day before Jane Doe filed a lawsuit claiming she was drugged and sexually assaulted against her will at a Cornell frat house.
Now, one month later, the nation is engulfed in a debate over what feminism has wrought.
Doe’s private text messages in the immediate aftermath of that 2024 incident praised and defended what she called a “gangbang.” Now, having been shamed and disrespected for — her words, “our body, our choice” — she has filed a lawsuit seeking millions of dollars in damages.
Lederman has now responded to this campus controversy, writing another piece on Oct. 5 for his Take Back America Substack headlined “Cornell Has A Sex-Education Problem.”
This column, too, has raised eyebrows and prompted discussion for outing the prolific whatever-feels-good-do-it training and encouragement Cornell gives its students under the guise of “sex education.”
It flags a laundry list of ways in which no-strings-attached sex has been promoted at the Ivy League institution, including Cornell Health’s “Sexual Pleasure: Finding the ‘Sweet Spot,'” guide, in which students “are encouraged to explore sexual fantasies, experiment with sex toys, and consider bondage and fetish gear.”
Lederman writes it’s wrong for the university to become students’ sexual liberators and tutors.
“As a senior who, until recently, was a member of Cornell Greek life, I am hardly writing from a monastery,” he wrote. “I have spent the last several years surrounded by the carefree sexual culture I am describing, and having watched what happens when sex is severed from commitment, I have come to believe that sexual intimacy belongs within a committed relationship, accompanied by loyalty, responsibility, and exclusivity”
“I am not suggesting Cornell need adopt this outlook on sex; I am merely advocating it not espouse the polar opposite.”
In an interview last week with The College Fix, Lederman said the situation at Cornell could have probably happened at any college campus, because they ignore the benefits of committed relationships, loyalty, responsibility, and exclusivity in their sex ed programs.
“I’m not saying they shouldn’t be involved in sex at all,” he said. “I’m saying the sex ed should be, ‘Use contraception, be careful.'”
Is Greek Life to blame, too? Not necessarily, Lederman said, calling calls to prohibit Greek Life and ban fraternities “unreasonable reactions to what happened.”
“Greek Life has, for both men and women, quite a few positive impacts.”
“For me, it was hugely beneficial,” he told The Fix. “It offered me community. It offered me a support network. Naturally, it didn’t end up the way that I anticipated it ending up. But … frats are a by-product of a culture that advocates for excess drinking, advocates for sexual promiscuity, advocates for behaviors that, generally speaking, we shouldn’t be advocating.”
Is he just a goody two shoes? Lederman said it’s a fair question.
“College students are always going to have sex. I have no issue with that,” he said. “Look, if we live in a society today that calls me a prude for saying people shouldn’t have sex until they’re in a committed relationship, then I guess I’m a prude.”
“But,” he added, “I’m not really going to shy away from that definition if that’s what it means, because I think that is a far better way for our society to operate.”
He’s not alone. In fact, while the public backlash from his “men and women are different” piece came overwhelmingly from women on campus, Lederman said that his most fervent supporters were also women, they just voiced it privately.
As for his fraternity, Lederman said he believes his removal was less about ideology and more about social self-preservation.
“The bigger concern was that my frat … would look bad in the eyes of the women that people want to have at our parties and it would degrade our social status,” he said.
Lederman plans to put his money where his mouth is. The 19-year-old applied economics major graduates in December, and said he hopes to build on his budding Take Back America effort.
“I want to create a platform where students feel they can express their ideas,” Lederman told The Fix. “I want to mobilize free expression across United States college campuses.”
MORE: Cornell lawsuit sparks debate on consent for both accuser and accused
