Not all men, but 57 at Cornell University

Editor’s Note: This statement discusses allegations of sexual assault and the investigation that followed. Readers may find the subject matter distressing. 

Cornell University is under fire after a civil lawsuit was filed by an anonymous Jane Doe on Sept. 14 alleging that she was drugged and gang raped by seven members of the Chi Pi Fraternity in October 2024. 

The lawsuit names the following, among others, as defendants: Cornell University, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Matthew Ingalls, Scott Norris, Johnathan Newell, Scott Kretzschmar, Winston Lee and the Chi Pi Fraternity. 

The suit states that then 20-year-old Doe was attending a Chi Pi house party when she was “pressured to ingest ketamine, marijuana and alcohol.” She was then taken to a bedroom where she was repeatedly assaulted for seven hours. A group text was sent via Snapchat, vulgarly offering the incapacitated Doe to other fraternity members. Not a single man in that group chat, allegedly containing over fifty fraternity members, made any effort to protect Doe or to contact the police. 

Doe reported the alleged assault to university officials on Nov. 8, 2024, but the investigation was eventually closed by the Tompkins County District Attorney Office with no criminal charges due to “lack of evidence,” despite multiple witness accounts and screenshots from the group chat.  

Two of the seven men were expelled, while the others were offered a chance to “mitigate their conduct” with an essay submission. 

Since the widely publicized filing, New York District Attorney Matthew Von Houten has made the decision to reopen the case. 

“While I generally refrain from commenting publicly on criminal investigations, the community outrage stemming from the incomplete news and social media coverage requires that I provide an answer to why the investigation resulted in a lack of criminal charges,” Von Houten said in his Sept. 28 statement regarding the case. “Jane Doe’s sworn statement in November of 2024 did not allege that she was drugged against her will or gang raped. On the contrary, Jane Doe’s statement described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious, and consensual. My office obviously did not and could not have based our November 2024 decision on the allegations in a civil lawsuit that would not be filed until nearly two years later.” 

While defending the District Attorney Office’s initial decision to close the case, Von Houten clarified that he supports the re-opening of said investigation with the admittance of new evidence. 

“At the same time, I recognize the reality that it can take years of therapy and healing for victims of sexual assaults to fully process and understand what happened to them. Seeking justice sometimes requires us to reconsider or reopen cases when we are provided with additional evidence,” Von Houten said in his statement. 

Cornell formally acknowledged the suit with an official university statement on Sept. 21.  

“Cornell University is aware of a lawsuit concerning the deeply disturbing allegations of sexual assault involving members of the student community that occurred in 2024…we take sexual violence extremely seriously. The Presidential Task Force on Campus Sexual Assault was launched shortly after this incident and issued a report in March 2026. Several of the recommendations have already been implemented, while others are in development with oversight by a university implementation committee,” the university statement said. 

Social media has since exploded in support of Jane Doe and outrage at the actions of the Chi Pi Fraternity and Cornell administration’s response. Many influential people have spoken out, with Florence Pugh one of those leading the charge. 

“Colleges/schools/universities repeatedly fail women around the world. You build men that get taught through time and time again that they can do extreme harm and that they won’t be harmed in return,” Pugh wrote in an Instagram post on Sept. 27. “This is really the moment where we need our men to be as horrified and as sickened as us… how can you expect us to trust that it’s “not all men” when in moments like this, many of you stay quiet?” 

While Cornell administration has remained notably silent, its students are unwilling to do so. The student-run media account “Cornellians_only” on Instagram, with over 15,000 followers, has been giving live updates on the case. The Cornell Daily Sun, the student-run newspaper, demanded accountability in their Sept. 21 editorial titled: Cornell Won’t, We Will. 

“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,” the Editorial Board said. 

Unfortunately, Cornell is the latest example of an epidemic on college campuses. The Office of Higher Education’s Sexual Assault Data report states that, in 2025 alone, a total of 322 sexual assaults were reported to postsecondary institutions in Minnesota; of those, a mere 22.3% of cases were also reported to police. Further, only 122 of the 322 reports (38.2%) were investigated by the institution they occurred at. 

To restate that, in Minnesota alone, 322 sexual assaults occurred on college campuses in 365 days. And those are only including the ones that went reported. 

A number of those 322 reports came from our own community. Because of the active and ongoing nature of these investigations, the reality of the Cornell case hits close to home for a lot of us. And though everything is alleged at this point, the effects are not imagined.  

Women do not just need men who will not be their assaulters; women need men who are willing to defend them and uphold their dignity to other men. 57 Chi Pi Fraternity members were in that group chat. Seven took part in the assault directly and 50 allowed it to happen. The men in that group chat were able to minimize their own involvement and diffuse responsibility by hiding behind a screen. Snapchat gave them the platform to hide behind a sense of anonymity, and Cornell’s insulting “consequences” have only reinforced those ideas. 

Johnnies, do not just do the right thing; hold your friends accountable. It takes a village. If even one of those men had resisted complacency and called the police or interrupted the abhorrent alleged events of that night, things could have been different. While those seven men received punishments as simple as essay assignments, Doe is serving a life sentence of trauma.  

It may not be “all men”, but every woman you know has a story. Every woman has been put in an uncomfortable position, catcalled, harassed or worse. Jane Doe is not a faceless stranger on the internet; she is your sister, your mother, your friend and your fellow human being. 

To Cornell’s Jane Doe, and to all the Jane Does on our own campuses and on others: We see you. We stand with you. We are fighting for you.  

Women have always been cautious, covering their drinks, using the buddy system, locking their doors and texting when they get home. Last year, it still wasn’t enough to keep those women safe. While “No means no” may seem like common sense, it is apparently not. According to CSB+SJU’s own 2025 Annual Crime, Hazing and Fire Safety Report, published on Sept. 30, two instances of rape were reported on either campus during the 2025 calendar year, a total of four reports across both campuses.  

“Prior to the start of each semester, all new students enrolled for that semester are required to complete an online sexual assault prevention training course. Completion is monitored and those who do not complete the training have a hold placed on their account preventing them from registering until the course is completed,” the report reads. 

Beyond that, only certain groups like residential assistants and athletes are re-educated each year. It is the opinion of The Record that everyone on our campuses could benefit from sexual assault education. Clearly, what we are doing now is not enough.  

If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, there are resources to help. Call the Central Minnesota Sexual Assault Center Hotline at (320) 251-4357, open 24 hours. You are not alone.