Cornell Will Take “Serious Look” at Role of Greek Life

Cornell University will re-examine its sexual assault prevention and response efforts and take a “serious look at the role of fraternities and sororities in campus life,” President Michael Kotlikoff said in a video statement Saturday.

The eight-minute video message is Kotlikoff’s first direct public statement in response to an anonymous former student’s allegation that she was raped in 2024 by seven men at the Chi Phi fraternity house. Kotlikoff called what happened to the student, known as Jane Doe, “deeply disturbing.”

“My heart aches when I think of what she experienced. It raises heartbreaking and troubling issues about sexual assault, dehumanization and aspects of party culture, alcohol and drug use. It also raises questions around the investigations conducted after the allegations were reported,” he said. “I want to acknowledge something that can be difficult for an institution to say: We don’t have all the answers, but we are committed to investigating and finding the answers our community deserves.”

In the weeks since Doe made her experience public in a lawsuit against Cornell and the seven men she alleges raped her, the Ivy League university’s response to sexual assault on campus—as well as its efforts to prevent sexual violence in the first place—have come under intense scrutiny from students, employees, alumni and the general public.

Campus tensions ran high Monday. Anonymous activists smashed a glass door and spray-painted “SMASH THE PATRIARCHY” and “AT CORNELL RAPISTS ARE PROTECTED PROTESTORS ARE EXPELLED” on the walls of an administrative building, The Cornell Daily Sun reported. “We wanted to ensure that Day Hall, the center of Cornell’s administrative function, was not able to continue business as usual,” the activists wrote in a statement to the Daily Sun.

Last Thursday, the Cornell Student Assembly held a public hearing where students could voice their concerns about Doe’s allegation and campus sexual violence in general. There, one student highlighted the toll that the allegation and increased media attention has had on current students, the Daily Sun reported.

“This past week, I have skipped classes because I am trying to navigate something that does not feel possible to compartmentalize,” the student said. “I cannot pretend this is a normal Thursday when I am passing camera crews on my way to class … The Cornell student body is facing a mental health crisis.”

Doe’s own mental health is also suffering, her lawyer told NBC News on Friday.

“She is not doing well,” he said. “She is hanging on by a string.”

At Thursday’s meeting, the Student Assembly also passed three resolutions related to the alleged rape, the Daily Sun reported. The first seeks greater transparency from the Cornell administration and calls for an enforceable drug and alcohol policy. The second requests the university provide Assembly members with the online sexual assault prevention training materials that students see during orientation so they can review them. And the third asks for a Cornell Health Counseling and Psychological Services fee waiver for survivors of sexual assault. All three resolutions passed unanimously and await approval by Kotlikoff, the Daily Sun reported.

Meanwhile, troves of documents related to the investigation of Doe’s initial 2024 report have surfaced in the news media, including details about how Cornell punished each of the seven defendants named in Doe’s lawsuit. Two of the defendants, Matthew Ingalls and Johnathan Newell, were expelled, according to the documents. In her lawsuit, Doe said Ingalls was the friend she initially went to the Chi Phi house to meet up with and who proposed a threesome with himself and Newell. Newell later invited other fraternity members to the room, where Doe was undressed, via a Snapchat group message advertising “free pussy,” the lawsuit alleges. Neither defendant provided a comment to The New York Times, which first reported the news.

Two other defendants—Winston Lee and Gillio Lopes—were issued suspensions. Lee, who allegedly inhaled ketamine off Doe’s body and forced oral sex on her, was suspended for two years with several semesters of probation. Lopes, who Doe alleged had sex with her without her consent, was suspended for three semesters with several years of probation, the Times reported. Lawyers for Lopes and Lee did not respond to the Times’ request for comment.

The fifth defendant, Diego Sarabia, had graduated by the time the disciplinary panel ruled. He was barred from campus for three years for allegedly forcibly kissing Doe. The last two defendants—Scott Norris and Scott Kretzschmar, who allegedly entered the room where Doe was after seeing Newell’s message—were ordered not to contact Doe and required to study sexual harassment, social media use and bystander intervention, and to write “reflection papers”—a task that Cornell has received major criticism for assigning.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Thursday that Cornell had agreed to an independent investigation of how it handled the rape allegation; Kotlikoff said Saturday that the Board of Trustees plans to share details about that investigation this week.

“But we will not wait for the investigation or the review to be completed before we act,” Kotlikoff said. “Where we see opportunities to strengthen prevention and education, student support, mental health and substance use resources, investigative processes or coordination among our university offices, we will act. The review should inform additional changes, not delay improvements already underway or ones we know we can make today.”

Cornell also plans to lend its “full support to legislative efforts” to change New York State’s sexual assault laws, he said.