Op Ed by student newspaper outlines flaws and gaps in Adminstration’s response to civil compaint that a student was drugged and gang raped in a frat in October 2024.
“ So we ask the questions the University has left unanswered. If Cornell follows the law, then we should have access to a public deposition issued from the school, the Title IX investigation opened in January 2025 and how it concluded. Why were these men allowed to “pursue their education in a secure and nourishing environment” and she was not? Why was she not informed of the outcome of her own Title IX investigation? Who benefited from the 23 months of elapsed time when the public knew nothing?
Cornell wrote that the suspensions of the men were issued “to protect the immediate physical health and safety of all students.” The Faculty Senate, voting 80-16 in November 2025, held that interim suspensions should cease when the risk of harm ceases. For the men to be back on campus, either the danger passed at some identifiable moment, and thus this community is owed an account of what changed, or it did not and the suspensions were lifted anyway. Cornell has explained neither.
The lawsuit alleges the suspended students were offered the chance to mitigate conduct by submitting essays. A student accused of copying on a prelim receives a written notice with the evidence, three business days to demand a hearing and resolution of their case within two weeks, under the Accepting Responsibility Program written into the Code of Academic Integrity, which passed by a vote of 97-3. Cornell is capable of speed, of structure and most definitely of proportion — at least for the chemistry department.……”
“ 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 Ithaca Police Department and the Tompkins County district attorney. As for Cornell, 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. We call on Cornell to publish the standard by which a suspension in a sexual assault case is lifted. We call on them to state whether an allegation of sexual assault is eligible for emergency suspension at all under the revised Article VIII. Finally, we expect that the University shares with the complainant the outcome of her own investigation.
In Cornell’s own words, in the very letter it published on Nov. 26, 2024 — “Only those who perpetrate sexual violence benefit from its concealment.”
We refuse for this victim to be reduced to just another story. Cornell has failed to protect its students. Cornell has failed to address the growing issue of sexual assault on campus with its pathetic task force. Cornell has failed the student allegedly raped by those seven men at Chi Phi in October 2024. Cornell has failed her. Cornell has failed us.”