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Cornell had 2 years to take this seriously.
Now thousands of students, faculty, and community members are protesting. Faculty members have introduced a no confidence resolution. The New York Attorney General has taken over the criminal investigation. Cornell has hired former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates to review how the university handled Jane Doe’s case.
And today, students are holding a 7 hour sit in and campuswide economic blackout. 7 hours. Because that is how long organizers say Jane Doe endured what happened at Chi Phi.
Jane Doe reported the alleged assault to Cornell police in November 2024. She sat with them for hours and told them she could say with 100% confidence that she had been raped. According to New York Governor Kathy Hochul, that statement was missing from the account Cornell police sent to prosecutors.
The district attorney then closed the case without interviewing Jane Doe or anyone else allegedly involved in the assault. No criminal charges were filed.
Cornell did conduct its own Title IX investigation. The Chi Phi chapter was eventually shut down. Cornell says some students were expelled, others suspended, and some were told to write a report as punishment. Some of the accused students have maintained that the sexual activity was consensual, and attorneys for 2 former students have denied that their clients participated in sexual assault.
Then Jane Doe’s lawsuit made the details public, and people started asking some pretty obvious questions about how the hell this was handled in the first place. Now the criminal investigation has been reopened and taken away from the local DA. Attorney General Letitia James is overseeing it. And Cornell is commissioning an independent review. Sally Yates and her team will examine Cornell’s sexual misconduct investigations, disciplinary process, campus police response, coordination with outside law enforcement, and oversight of fraternities and other student organizations.
Because Jane Doe didn’t wait 2 years to say something. She reported it in 2024. She went to Cornell police. She sat there for hours. She told them she had been raped.
The question was never why she didn’t speak up. She did.
The question is what everyone with the power to do something about it did after she spoke.
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