I second what you write and can back up your claims. My kiddo is a freshman this fall. Lots of stories from their classmates and close friends about being threatened for merely being a Cornell student. It’s freaking nuts out there and the word that described the vibe on campus was intense. They had prelims last week that was already super stressful. Then the news broke and now we’re starting to worry about the psyche of the student body.
2 friggin bomb threats have been called into campus, kids saying they’ve had stuff thrown at them and yelled at for merely walking on the street with Cornell shirts. I’m sorry I know it’s a horrible thing that happened, but this crap has got to stop. Even my younger kid who’s still in high school told us people have said comments in class about our Cornell student that I won’t repeat here, but it’s appalling, and I’m sure you can guess what they said.
IV’E EVEN SEEN CORNELL ALUMNI threaten to withhold donations. Yeah, that’ll show em. Or maybe it’ll hurt the kids that benefit from that generosity that had nothing to do with this.
I ask all of you a favor, when you discuss this with others please remind people there’s still kids up there, just wanting to live their lives, study their butt’s off, be proud of their community, and most importantly feel safe in their environment.
Everything else going on is horrible, but I completely support witholdonf financial support and donations as do most of my alumni friends. They are attempting to hold Cornell administration accountable. Nor do they want their money going toward fighting lawsuits where the administration was at fault. Money talks and it is one of the few ways to let the administration know they do not stand for their actions.
If I had a student at Cornell I would not be worried about decreased donations. I would be worried about an administration that does not protect (all) of its students.
As an alumna, I concur. Money seems to be the only leverage we have. To me it’s like voting. We use what little influence that we actually have.
The vilification of students though has to stop! From all I’ve read, the general student population is doing a great job of pressuring the administration for change and they should be applauded! And extra big kudos to the writing staff at the Daily Sun for keeping the spot light on what’s happening, along with the Student Assembly!
These arguments about withholding donations are the same as I’m seeing online - the main objective is to pressure the administration.
The criticism of anyone at Cornell other than those in charge of handling this is ridiculous and I am so sorry for those of you with kids there. Do people even stop to think that some of the students they are targeting like this are likely also SA victims? I’ve even seen a wave of people deleting the Merlin app. How is negatively impacting scientific research on birds - in an environment when the government is slashing science funding too - going to help?
It’s no different than schools that had protests. Kids should be allowed. If you disagree that student A protested, it doesn’t make student B responsible.
If law firms held firm in not hiring kids from a certain school, that’s unfair to those not involved. If you want to black list individuals, that’s ok.
I’ve not seen anyone locally in a Cornell shirt in a long time, but thinking less of them would never cross my mind.
However, If someone wants to withhold donations, it’s their money and I have no issue with that. Some schools lost millions over campus activities following the Israeli tragedy in October 2023. It’s an individual’s right how to spend their money.
I also think, however, we hold these admins to a level that is reasonable but we also have to remember, few have experience so it’s not like they face these types of situations regularly, whether it’s Dr Kotlikoff with the car or sexual assault which he may not have even been involved in this case. It’s easy for the state to come in guns blazing but we don’t know if the local DA failed. They may have had no way of knowing about the statements.
There was clearly errors but so many would have flubbed these type things no matter how esteemed they are.
My kid originally had RPI and NYU on his college list, but he decided not to apply to those schools. Having read about New York’s consent law as a result of this Cornell case, I am glad my child will not be moving to the state of New York for college.
There are already moves underway to change that law from what I understand, but I get it. My kid scratched a bunch of states because of certain state laws.
Interestingly something came out the other day that showed the college with the highest number of reported rapes is U Utah. (I haven’t seen anything that contextualizes numbers relative to student body.)
Usually CNN is locked for me as I don’t subscribe but this one opened. There’s a lot of info here, including Cornell now saying they provided evidence to the DA which declined to pursue based on Jane Doe’s reported statement. I’m assuming they saw she said it was consensual (which is what the media first reported it seems) but didn’t see the statement where she said she was raped.
Her attorney implies many more could have been involved but they’ll never know. I’m not a fan of that kind of statement - provide proof or don’t say it.
There’s also an image of a banner hanging from a house, dating to fire the admin.
Anyway, not sure if anything new is here but if it opens for you, you might get a latest summary.
I do appreciate the student who said this could happen to anyone - male or female - because people seem to think this can only go one way in society.
Perhaps you should amend that to “some people”. Plenty of people recognize this is an issue. There is definitely an issue with underreporting there because of added perceived stigma.
Forgive me if this is already posted, but from what I have read, it seems 2 of the 7 men were expelled, 2 were suspended, 1 had already graduated so he was banned from campus, and 2 got essay writing and training. In addition, the DA refused to consider information campus police had, but the original statement campus police shared with the DA omitted Jane Doe’s statement that she was sure she had been raped.
It also looks like the internal investigation had over 1000 pages of material and 20+ witness interviews.
All of this makes me wonder if we had all of the information, would we think the differing punishments for the 7 men were legitimate or not. It seems there was likely a serious investigation on campus with distinct punishments from the largest a campus can offer (expulsion) to the lightest (training/essay writing).
Of course anyone’s money is their business to do what they please.
As a parent, I am worried about a lot of stuff including student safety. Yes we’re new to the university. So I have no historical perspective of the administration’s ability to protect students or not. And yes it seems like in this instance, they messed up. But to me, this is an impossible position to be in. They’re getting sued by the accused and the accuser.
At the same time I am going to worry about donations dropping. I’m fairly certain you can request your money go towards specific uses/causes. All I am saying is you run the risk of hurting the kids that have nothing to do with what’s going on.
I didn’t go there, so I have no say in the matter, and maybe I’m out of line speaking my mind. (A stay in your lane type of deal) I just wanted to raise the awareness that actions have unintended consequences. I understand the alumni’s qualms are with the administration, but the current and future students need your support right now.
That seems accurate from what I’ve seen, and there is an article in the NYT today where they somehow got hold of the details of each person’s punishment. However also note that the length of time it took Cornell to investigate everything (this was in one of the articles I linked earlier) seems to have been an issue, for instance, it took them weeks rather than days to get the phones. It’s not entirely clear to me but it seems that the Cornell investigation carried on after they gave the statement to the DA, which may partly explain the disconnect - I think part of what has people riled up is the disconnect between the college and what was handed over to the DA, because rape is a crime and it seems the DA did not have all the evidence needed to properly evaluate the case. It was suggested by a prof at another NY school that Cornell had an interest in not wanting to have to report a gang rape on campus which it would have to do under law:
Mr. Trunfio and other experts said the investigation should have been handed off to a specialized police or prosecution team like the special victims bureau he founded at the Onondaga County District Attorney’s Office. Also problematic, he added, is that the Cornell University Police Department was “beholden” to the school, which would have had to report under federal law if a gang rape on campus was prosecuted by civilian authorities.
“You think Cornell University wants to report something like that?” Mr. Trunfio said
Money is fungible, though. Donor X wants their money to go to category Y, ok we can do that. We can also divert our own money out of category Y and put it towards legal fees.
I think the ultimate idea though is that donors are trying to put pressure on to get action now, and not that they will permanently stop their donations.
Better eliminate Massachusetts too, then, since per mass.gov “Consent” to sex is not defined in Massachusetts laws.
I’m being a tad sarcastic - my kid went to boarding school and college in MA.
Wherever your kid goes to school, there will be good people and bad people. The best thing you can do is educate your child on how to recognize red flags, and the time to start this is well before college.
Cornell has had the same problem for decades, and the only difference between now and 40 years ago is the documentable communications. One of the positives about Cornell is that it’s large enough that you can find your own community outside of the Greek system.
While we don’t have all the information, what we do have suggests that the 7 students committed different offenses, so it seems reasonable that they should receive different punishments. The more severe accused offenses correspond to the more severe punishments.
Specifically the 2 students who are accused of initiating the events and encouraging others frat members to participate were expelled. The additional 2 students who are accused of having sex with Doe were suspended for 1-2 years + years of disciplinary probation. The non-student who is accused of forcibly kissing Doe was barred from campus for 3 years. The remaining 2 students who are accused of entering the room and snorting drugs from body (no sex/kissing) were not suspended/expelled. All continuing students were required to not contact Doe, complete sexual harassment training, and write a reflection paper.
Whether the punishments should have been more severe is a different matter. As noted earlier in the thread, the initial accusations after the events differed in severity from the accusations in the recent lawsuit.
The part of the professors statement suggesting Cornell police did something wrong because they did not want to report a gang rape makes little sense to me given the information that is out there. It seems the internal Title IF process determined at least 2 men sexually assaulted her. It seems she told the police she was raped. The school banned the fraternity from campus. All of that, I believe would mean the school would already have hade to Clery report the crime under federal law. They also put out a campus alert after the incident happened. And it seems it was widely known in the community at the time. But somehow they were so afraid of a bit more or different reporting that they did something nefarious with the information or sandbagged the investigation? It frankly reads like speculation from a prof based on the fact that campus police are part of the university.
I frankly would be shocked if campus legal counsel were not involved in this matter with police and administrators. It seems a situation where counsel would expect a high likelihood of multiple lawsuits if they are any good (which I imagine a school as wealthy and prominent as Cornell’s would be). One would expect Jane Doe might sue, the expelled and suspended students might sue, the fraternity might sue. And, in that circumstance, to think any of the pertinent facts won’t come out and somehow the university’s reputation would be spared by not doing the basic things that should be done, would be a foolish and naive position at best. Especially after metoo and the backlash to metoo during the first Trump administration. The best protection of the Univetsity would be a thorough investigation, turning over relevant information to prosecutors, appropriate individual sanctions, and then defend all of those actions with facts and evidence. I don’t buy that sophisticated actors would try to hide the gang rape prosecution aspect yet take the other actions they took that would forseeably lead to multiple lawsuits.
Cornell has a an 11.8 billion. Billion. With a B. Endowment. If alumni withholding donations is effecting any student currently attending Cornell, there are bigger issues going on.
One never knows the motives, but hopefully the individuals involved would say hell no to this.
@Cptndeez - The Ivies - not sure about Cornell - lost a lot of money from the Feds under this administration. And I think that money directly hits kids, especially internationals.
But Cornell has a $12 billion endowment, so they’ll be able to outrun any donation declines for years.
And yes, it’s absolutely tragic that those who have nothing do with this this - heck, half the students are likely new - that they are targeted - and to those who were there, doing their own thing, they also have nothing to do with this so any smear is unfair.
And the same for the high high high majority of the employees. Does there need to be process changes with the police and how they interact with the Ithaca or state police? Clearly that’s a place to start.
I think (1) there was a timing difference between Cornell’s full investigation and what they had done when they handed info to the DA (2) the statement that she was raped was given to Cornell police and (along with many other details, noted in one of the articles linked before that an extremely condensed version of the info was handed over) not passed over to the DA/ithaca police - which would be the “civilian” police he referred to. I don’t know for sure as I am not a lawyer, however, he is a law professor and has been involved in SA cases so I would defer to his opinion. And if what they had was sufficient under the law to have to be reported, then there is the question of why it wasn’t.
I’m not so sure, reading online about experiences not just at Cornell but elsewhere it seems the vast majority of Jane Does do not sue, same with the students who do make it as far as being found guilty. As for the fraternity,the local chapter is not a legal entity (according to the lawyer blog I linked above) and it sounds like the national organization either did not object to the chapter being closed or did not want to draw attention to what had happened there by suing.
Ok, clarification on the timeline. What was given to prosecutors to review happened well before the Title IX investigation. Nothing apparently given to Ithaca police at all.
Nov. 14, 2024 – Jane Doe makes a formal statement to Cornell campus police, who ask the Tompkins County District Attorney’s Office to review it and determine whether a crime had been committed. Prosecutors decide not to file charges.
Jan. 14, 2025 – Cornell commences a Title IX investigation in response to Jane Doe’s formal complaint filed with the university’s Title IX coordinator, according to Jane Doe’s lawsuit.
May 2 to May 29, 2025 – Cornell’s Title IX Office conducts at least 12 hearings on Jane Doe’s allegations, conducting 50 interviews with 32 witnesses, including the men Jane Doe alleges assaulted her.
Sept. 28, 2026 – Lawyers for two of the seven men accused in the case, Scott Kretzschmar and Scott Norris, issue statements denying their clients were involved in the alleged sexual assault.
The same day, the Ithaca Police Department issues a statement saying that the sexual assault alleged by Jane Doe “was not reported to the Ithaca Police Department,” which “learned of these allegations recently through the media.”
Responding to questions about why the university didn’t bring in the Ithaca police to investigate the allegations, Cornell issues a statement saying, “The Cornell University Police Department is a unit of the university, and its officers are special deputy sheriffs pursuant to NY Educational Law 5709 whose duties include the enforcement of law and order on Cornell property. This incident occurred in Cornell’s jurisdiction.”