Prosecutors have reopened an investigation into a Cornell University student who reported being raped in a fraternity house in 2024, raising questions about law enforcement and the school's original handling of the case.
Her allegations resurfaced two weeks ago when the student - identified in the lawsuit as "Jane Doe" - sued seven men, Cornell University, her sorority and the fraternity involved. The case sparked heated debate online and brought renewed attention to the long-standing issue of sexual assault on college campuses.
The district attorney in Tompkins County, New York, where Cornell University is located in Ithaca, said he would consider presenting the case to a grand jury. In 2024, shortly after the student reported the crime, he decided not to do so.
Here’s what we know so far about the Cornell case.
About the case of "Anonymous"
Because of her anonymity in the lawsuit, most details about her life are unknown. Her lawyer said she is from a small town about 1,600 kilometers from Cornell University. She entered Cornell University as an undergraduate student in August 2022 and dropped out in 2024 after claiming that she was raped. She was 20 years old at the time and a member of the Tri-Delta sorority.
She is still dealing with the aftermath of the incident and has not continued attending college, her lawyer said.
The lawsuit's description of what happened
According to the lawsuit, the woman was raped multiple times for nearly seven hours on October 19, 2024, inside the Chi Phi fraternity house in Ithaca, New York.
She first drank vodka that night at the sorority house, the lawsuit said. Around 8:30 p.m., she took an Uber to an event held by her sorority at a bar. Although the bouncer correctly identified her as under the legal drinking age, she claims she was still offered at least one alcoholic drink. By around 11 p.m., she decided to walk about 1.6 kilometers to the Chi Phi fraternity house to meet a man she considered a friend.
When she arrived, the man and his fraternity brothers gave her beer, marijuana, rum and ketamine, the lawsuit states. She claimed in the lawsuit that she had never used K powder before and was forced to smoke it. The lawsuit then details a series of sexual assaults and her ongoing drug use with the friend and six other men.
A screenshot attached to the lawsuit shows that at about 1:42 a.m., one of the men sent a message to the Chi Phi fraternity's Snapchat group inviting others to join, using a vulgar term for female genitalia.
police response
With the encouragement of friends, "Anonymous" reported the crime to the Cornell University Police Department on November 8, 2024.
Cornell police issued a crime alert on campus, saying a victim reported being "sexually assaulted by multiple men and forced to take ketamine and other drugs" at a fraternity house. In a message sent to campus before that Thanksgiving, Cornell's president said the University Police Department was continuing a criminal investigation while a second administrative investigation into the allegations was underway.
Sometime that month, Cornell police asked the Tompkins County District Attorney's Office to review a statement from "Jane Doe." Criminal investigators told police they believed the statement alone would preclude criminal charges under New York state law. Jane Doe's lawyer said she was never contacted by any police or criminal investigators after she made her initial statement.
It's unclear whether police interviewed the men involved or whether "Jane Doe" was told her criminal case would not move forward.
On Monday, the district attorney said - who has so far released only portions of Jane Doe's initial six-page statement - that it did not clearly indicate that she was forced to have sex or that she was incapacitated at the time, although she was under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
Cornell University’s response at the time
The lawsuit says the school immediately suspended the fraternity involved and the seven men she named in the lawsuit.
At the same time, Cornell University's on-campus administrative procedures in accordance with Title IX of the Education Law Amendment were immediately launched to determine whether the accused men should be punished. According to the woman's lawsuit, a review panel composed of faculty and staff held at least 12 hearings in May 2025.
The defendant men "were afforded the opportunity to mitigate the consequences of their actions by submitting written submissions to Cornell," the lawsuit states. Cornell does not deny that the written materials - which the school calls reviews - were part of the punishment the panel decided to impose on some of the men. But the school said on Monday that this was not the only punishment for any of the parties involved.
Cornell University declined to disclose the specific sanctions against each of the men, citing student privacy rules. The school said on Monday it had taken "a range of disciplinary measures, including expulsion and suspension" against them. Thomas Giuffra, a lawyer representing "Jane Doe," said in an interview that only two men were fired and that his client believed justice had not been served.
reaction to the case
