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The alleged incident took place on university grounds in 2024. Cornell has yet to comment publicly.
On Tuesday, the names and faces of seven Cornell University students flooded the internet. They were all young men. And they were all allegedly involved in the gang rape of a woman on campus in 2024.
Jane Doe initially came forward shortly after the incident was said to have happened, telling Cornell University Police on 8 November 2024. She has now filed a civil lawsuit alleging she was drugged and raped by multiple people at a fraternity house at the university on 19 October 2024.
At the time of the assault two years ago, the victim claims university staff and authorities did nothing to intervene, and the institution has remained publicly quiet on the ongoing situation.
Part of the lawsuit contains an image purported to be from a Snapchat fraternity group chat, in which one of the seven young men – being named online as ‘the Cornell 7’ – alerted other members of the group of the potential to join in on the sexual assault of Jane Doe.
The former student is now suing the school and the Chi Pi fraternity members, claiming they failed to protect her and prevent the alleged attack. Jane Doe was only 20 years old at the time, and had visited Cornell’s Chi Pi fraternity with a friend while intoxicated.
She alleges two young men pressured her into taking drugs before they assaulted her for several hours.
The university conducted an internal investigation following the claims, but of the seven men accused, only two were expelled while the others received lesser sanctions including suspensions, workshops or essays.
New York state prosecutors said that evidence at the time did not meet the legal threshold to bring charges, but that due to differing details in the new civil lawsuit, the case would now be brought before a grand jury.
‘Jane Doe’s sworn statement in November of 2024 did not allege that she was drugged against her will or gang raped,’ Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten said Monday.
‘On the contrary, Jane Doe’s statement described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious and consensual.’
He went on to acknowledge that ‘the reality that it can take years of therapy and healing for victims of sexual assaults to fully process or understand what happened to them.’
‘Once we determine the appropriate charges, the case will be prosecuted in the most objective and impartial means possible,’ through a grand jury, Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten said Monday.
