The Man Who Says, “Enough”

By Matthew J. DeSarno, MAG Board Member

The allegations emerging from Cornell University are disturbing. According to a lawsuit filed by a former student, a night involving alcohol and drugs at a fraternity house escalated into sexual assaults involving multiple men. The allegations are contested, and the criminal investigation has been reopened. The facts must be established through a fair and thorough process.

But there is a larger question that should concern every man, regardless of what investigators ultimately determine happened at Cornell.

Where was the man who said, “Enough”?

I spent more than two decades in federal law enforcement, investigating serious crimes, leading complex operations, and making difficult decisions under pressure. One lesson from that experience has stayed with me: terrible things rarely happen without warning. There are often moments when someone recognizes that a situation is moving in the wrong direction, when a decision to act could change what happens next.

Those moments are not always dramatic. Sometimes they begin with a crude joke, a degrading comment, an offensive text message, or a conversation in which a woman becomes an object of ridicule or conquest. Sometimes they occur when alcohol and drugs have impaired someone's judgment and the people around them recognize a growing vulnerability.

And sometimes the most consequential decision is made by the person who says nothing.

We tend to think of bystanders as passive observers, people who happen to be present when someone else behaves badly. But bystander behavior can do real damage. Laughter can validate cruelty. Silence can communicate approval. A forwarded message can encourage the next escalation. When men repeatedly excuse behavior they know is wrong, they help establish a culture in which misconduct becomes increasingly acceptable.

That does not mean every bystander shares responsibility for another person's criminal conduct. It means we have an obligation to recognize how our own behavior influences the people around us.

The standard cannot simply be that we personally refuse to participate in misconduct. That is the minimum. Character demands more.

Not laughing. Not forwarding the message. Not looking away. Not convincing ourselves that someone else's behavior is someone else's problem.

Speaking up.

That is the conversation men need to have with other men, especially with boys and young men. We spend enormous amounts of time teaching young people how to achieve: how to make the team, get into the right school, build a résumé, earn a promotion, and become leaders. We spend far less time teaching them what leadership looks like at 1:30 in the morning when everyone around them is making terrible decisions.

That may be when leadership matters most.

Leadership in that moment is not complicated, but it can require courage. It might mean challenging a degrading conversation, telling a friend that his behavior is unacceptable, helping someone who is dangerously intoxicated get appropriate assistance, or refusing to let the approval of the group overpower your own judgment. Sometimes it means risking embarrassment, rejection, or the loss of social standing.

Those pressures are real, particularly for young men who are still learning what it means to belong to a group. The desire for acceptance can be powerful. So can the fear of being the only person willing to object.

But courage is not the absence of fear. It is the willingness to do what is right despite the consequences.

I have spent much of my adult life leading men and women in high-pressure environments. I learned that the best organizations are not necessarily those with the strongest individual personalities. They are the ones where people have enough mutual respect and trust to challenge one another, where accountability is expected, and where doing the right thing matters more than protecting someone's ego.

The same principles apply to a fraternity house, a locker room, a workplace, or a group of friends.

Culture is not defined by the values we claim to hold. It is defined by the behavior we tolerate.

This is why the work of the Men's Advocacy Group at New Friends New Life matters. Preventing sexual exploitation and violence does not begin only after a crime has been committed. It begins much earlier, with the culture men create around one another: how we talk about women when women are not in the room, what we laugh at, what we tolerate, what we encourage, and what we are willing to stop.

Men have an opportunity, and a responsibility, to change that culture. Not through lectures or declarations of virtue, but through example. Through conversations with our sons, our friends, our teammates, and our colleagues. Through the standards we establish and the courage we demonstrate when those standards are tested.

We should also recognize that intervention does not always mean confrontation. Sometimes the most effective response is to interrupt a conversation, redirect a situation, seek help, or quietly make sure a vulnerable person is safe. The objective is not to demonstrate toughness. It is to prevent harm.

Whatever the outcome of the Cornell case, the larger responsibility remains ours. We do not need to determine anyone's criminal guilt to decide what kind of behavior we will accept among the men in our lives.

And we should not wait for a terrible headline to begin that conversation.

As fathers, mentors, coaches, colleagues, and friends, we are constantly teaching others what acceptable behavior looks like. Sometimes we teach through instruction. More often, we teach through example, especially when standing up for what is right comes with a personal cost.

Our responsibility as men is to ask what kind of men we are helping create, because many dangerous situations contain a moment before the worst thing happens — a moment when somebody still has the ability to change the trajectory.

That person does not need a badge, authority, or permission from the group.

He just needs character.

The standard we should teach our sons, our teammates, our fraternity brothers, our colleagues, and ourselves is simple:

Be the man who stops it.