Gov. Hochul calls for independent review of 2024 Cornell sexual assault case
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Content note: This article includes mentions of sexual assault.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called for an independent review of Cornell University’s handling of a 2024 sexual assault allegation, syracuse.com reported Tuesday.
Hochul’s call comes after the case made national headlines following a lawsuit filed against Cornell by a former student who says she was raped by seven men in the university’s chapter of the Chi Phi Fraternity. The lawsuit alleges the university should have known about the threat the fraternity presented and failed to protect the woman, known as Jane Doe, in the lawsuit.
The woman said she was unable to consent and was coerced into taking drugs before being ‘raped for hours,’ according to a complaint filed in the New York State Supreme Court.
The incident was reported to campus police a few weeks after, but no report was filed to the Ithaca Police Department, The Cornell Daily Sun reported. Doe believed the case was also being investigated by IPD, according to the lawsuit.
Ithaca Mayor Robert Cantelmo scrutinized Cornell’s handling of the allegations and threatened to impose a moratorium on all Greek Life at the university in a Monday statement.
“Cornell University administrators and police failed to contact or coordinate any response with the Ithaca Police Department,” Cantelmo said in the statement. “Furthermore, the University failed to hold the perpetrators to account.”
During an Ithaca town hall meeting Sunday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez denounced a “culture of rape” and criticized the university’s handling of the allegations, The Cornell Daily Sun reported.
“She had to lose her education, and those men were protected by an institution and granted an Ivy League degree as a reward,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “Never again.”
The lawsuit against Cornell explicitly mentions the university’s decision to allow the men accused to write essays to “mitigate their conduct,” which has become heavily scrutinized as the case gains national attention.
“None of the individuals charged were offered the opportunity to write essays as a sole consequence of their involvement,” Kyle Kimball, vice president for university relations at Cornell, wrote in a Monday statement. “Any suggestion that the university did not impose consequential punishments for those involved is false.”
Cornell said some people involved were expelled or suspended as a result of the investigation, but no one was ever criminally charged, syracuse.com reported.
Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten said there was no basis for criminal charges in a Monday statement. While Van Houten said the woman’s credibility was never in question, he said her 2024 statement, made after the incident, described her participation in the drug use and sexual contact as consensual.
However, Van Houten also said he’s reopening the case based on new evidence in the civil lawsuit. One piece of new evidence, a screenshot of a Chi Phi Fraternity Snapchat group chat, allegedly shows one of the accused men sending a message reading “free p*ssy upstairs.” Five of the seven accused men responded in the group chat following the message.
Van Houten told ABC his office had never seen the Snapchat messages before.
Cornell released a statement Monday supporting the DA’s plan to present the case to a grand jury.
Hochul said Tuesday she supports the decision to reopen the investigation.
“The allegations in this case are nothing short of horrifying,” Hochul said in a statement. “No student should ever be left wondering whether the institutions meant to protect them will listen and act.”
