Dive Brief:
- More than 240 Cornell University faculty members have signed an open letter alleging the New York institution failed a former student whose account of being sexually assaulted by multiple fraternity members has garnered national attention.
- Signatories said the university administration actively fostered a culture of sexual assault and that the student’s case is “indicative of an epidemic at Cornell” rather than the result of an isolated incident, they wrote.
- Their letter comes amid the Cornell faculty senate’s consideration of a no-confidence vote against President Michael Kotlikoff and the publication of a letter from the student that said she felt “unsupported and disbelieved” by Kotlikoff when she reported the incident to the university two years ago.
Dive Insight:
The student, identified as Jane Doe in her lawsuit, has alleged since 2024 that she was drugged and gang raped at the Cornell Chi Phi fraternity house that October. She reported the assault the following month.
Doe’s case entered the national spotlight this September when she sued the men she says were responsible, along with Cornell and others, in civil court. The men named in Doe’s lawsuit have denied the allegations.
That attention has brought significant scrutiny on Kotlikoff and Cornell’s administration over how they addressed — or allegedly failed to address — Doe’s report of sexual assault.
In their open letter this month, the Cornell faculty described a campus culture of sexual assault, with the administration “concealing its workings and protecting its perpetrators.”
“We will not allow the horrific sexual violence experienced by Jane Doe and others in our community to be swept under the rug,” they wrote. “It is not lost on us that students found responsible for sexual violence have been punished far less harshly, for example, than nonviolent student protestors arrested for speaking up during panel discussions or banging pots and pans.”
In a September statement, Cornell said it issued temporary suspensions “and other restrictive measures” when it conducted a Title IX investigation into Doe’s report. When the university concluded the probe, it issued “a range of sanctions” including suspensions and expulsions.
Cornell has not provided details about those punishments, such as how many students were expelled or how long the suspensions were for, citing federal privacy law. The fraternity’s Cornell chapter closed in 2024 and is barred from campus.
The faculty letter, published last week, went on to say that institutional policies around free speech and expression have created a chilling effect on faculty and students.
“Silence breeds unquestioned loyalty, encourages groupthink and normalizes victim-blaming,” it said. “In contrast, voicing criticism of processes that are at best insufficient and at worst violent reflects a commitment to integrity and transparency in our community.”
The signatories also apologized for failing to use their positions to better protect students.
Their open letter comes as Cornell’s faculty senate discusses a possible no-confidence vote against Kotlikoff. The body began deliberations on Oct. 14. The same day, Doe sent a letter to Cornell’s dean of faculty and the speaker of the faculty senate about statements Kotlikoff made shortly after she reported her sexual assault.
According to Doe’s letter, Kotlikoff asked the then-president of a Cornell sorority why Doe waited so long to report her assault.
“She interpreted his question as an expression of doubt in the veracity of my story,” Doe said in her letter. “It diminished my confidence in the administration’s ability to approach my experience with the understanding, sensitivity, and fairness I had hoped for and expected from what had been my dream school.”
Doe retold the conversation to Cornell faculty leaders for consideration in their no-confidence vote deliberations. But three members of the faculty senate told CBS News that Cornell’s administration did not share the letter with them. Doe’s letter first became public in its entirety on Tuesday when The New York Times published it.
A Cornell spokesperson said on Tuesday that Doe’s description of the conversation was “incorrect, based on a documented first-hand account,” per a statement shared with the media.
“The question ‘why did it take so long for the assault to be reported’ was directed at bystanders who did not use Cornell’s anonymous tip line, despite ongoing social media activity about the incident in October 2024,” the spokesperson said. “[Kotlikoff] was not questioning Jane Doe’s reporting.”
Cornell did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
Earlier this month, the university announced that former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates would head an independent review into how it “prevents and responds to sexual harassment, sexual assault and related misconduct on campus.” Cornell also suspended social events at fraternity houses for the rest of the academic year and said it would add staff to its civil rights office.
In an Oct. 3 video message to campus, Kotlikoff acknowledged the public frustration “that Cornell has not communicated enough about what the university did after the assault was reported, which has led to distrust.”
“There are real legal and privacy limits on what we can say, but we will make a greater effort to explain what we can, to provide context about the actions Cornell has taken and to be more transparent,” the president said.
But the university’s communication has thus far been unable to quell that distrust.
“Cornell’s administration is motivated by money and power, not by justice, nor even by the much lower moral standard of fidelity to its own processes,” this week’s open faculty letter said.
The sentiment echoes allegations from the editorial board of The Cornell Daily Sun, the university’s student newspaper, last month.
“This is not a dark chapter in Cornell’s history, it’s a morbid pattern, only rectified with thorough criminal investigations in the hands of parties independent of the University,” the board wrote. “Administrators have allowed the idea that enough ambiguity, enough he-said-she-said, enough familial connections, enough money will allow you to get off scot-free.”
