sexual assault

Hold the Cornell Administration Accountable

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Cornell University’s Faculty Senate is voting on a resolution responding to our crisis of campus sexual assault, a crisis illustrated by Jane Doe’s shocking allegations of being gang raped at a fraternity house and the university administration’s handling of her allegations.

Great seal of Cornell University at the entrance to the Day Hall administration building

The resolution reads “Resolved, That the Faculty Senate has no confidence in the ability of the central administration to effectively address the ongoing crisis of sexual assault at Cornell University.” Voting begins October 30 and will remain open through November 6 to provide time for senators to engage with their constituents.

Hundreds of students, staff, faculty and alumni approached the sponsors of this resolution to emphasize to us that the Jane Doe case is but a tip of the iceberg.

Since the Senate began its debate on October 14, additional students and staff have approached the co-sponsors of this resolution to relate shocking stories of sexual harassment, stalking, and intimidation in their units, workplaces or academic departments.

Some staff report that they have been warned by their unit supervisors that if they speak out about sexual misconduct at Cornell, they will be terminated. These incidents are happening right now, even as we carefully deliberate. And they will continue to happen until we take decisive action. This is why I begged the Senate not to delay the vote on this resolution.

Since the Vote of No Confidence resolution was introduced, a veritable fortress of silence has been breached and new spaces for truth-telling have emerged at Cornell. Cornell alumni have told of their experiences of being sexually assaulted on campus.

Some of the women who were raped at Cornell in earlier decades are now writing op-eds, signing petitions, and sending pointed messages vowing to cease giving to their alma mater until we finally address rape culture.

“I was a Cornell Student from 1967 to 1971,” a survivor of sexual assault told me. “My senior year I was grabbed from behind by a rapist on the street in the fall semester of 1970 near my sorority (Alpha Epsilon Phi) on my way back from the library, two days after my 21st birthday. He put his arm around my neck in a choke hold and told me not to look at him or he’d kill me. I was raped from behind on my hands and knees.”

Cornell alumni have flooded the email accounts of the faculty co-sponsors of this resolution with a demand for action. They want action now. They applaud the Sally Yates investigation and other inquiries, but they are appalled that we would wait weeks, or even months, to come to conclusions that stare us right in the face.

This is why we reject the arguments of some who assert that we do not have enough evidence to judge whether the administration should be held accountable for what has been happening on our campus for decades and what is happening at this very moment.

Given that sexual assault and rape are decades-long crises at Cornell, why does this administration administer sexual harassment training to incoming students that is judged to be according, to the students, “a travesty,” “a sick joke,” and “ludicrous”? This train wreck of sexual harassment training could have been avoided. Especially when there are Cornell faculty who have designed sexual harassment training modules for workplaces in New York and beyond.

Alexandra Colin Klein ’18, a former co-lead of Sexual Assault Awareness Week at Cornell, wrote recently, “That Jane Doe was failed by Cornell’s administration merely repeats a pattern well known to survivors at Cornell. Of the students in Cornell’s 2025 survey who said they had experienced nonconsensual sexual conduct, only 23 percent contacted a formal resource.” Why is this?

Most of the current and former students who have approached faculty to share their stories of being sexually assaulted at Cornell have told us they were afraid to report these assaults because they felt that Cornell has often treated rape as a “PR problem,” rather than a heinous human rights violation. Why endure the humiliation and trauma of reporting their awful ordeal to the university or to the police when they know they will not be treated seriously?

Successive Cornell administrations have created what survivors of rape refer to as a “culture of fear” that prevents many victims of sexual assault from coming forward to testify about being assaulted. As one student survivor of sexual assault told me, “Cornell will quash any incident that they feel tarnishes it’s brand.”

Resolution sponsors have been told this same culture of fear exists at the Weill Cornell Medical Center. Aggrieved Individuals at the Ithaca and Weill campuses do not come forward because they understand that their ordeals will be swept under the rug.

It took the courage of Jane Doe, the investigative journalism of the Cornell Daily Sun, and student protests to do what the administration should have been doing all along: prioritizing the safety, health, and well-being of our entire campus above concerns over image or “brand.”

The opportunity to do something of lasting significance against rape and sexual violence in the United States is in our hands today. As Amnesty International USA has noted, “The stories from Cornell are gutting and enraging, but not surprising for so many sexual assault survivors who know what institutional betrayal feels like in our bones. Cornell is just one example of universities that keep trapping generations of students in the same exhausting cycle of administrative indifference.”

I ask the Faculty Senate to hold this administration accountable as a signal to our students and to this nation that we cherish the safety and well-being of all members of our community.

—By Paul Ortiz

UPDATE: On November 6, the Cornell Faculty Senate voted 75-50 to support the resolution “That the Faculty Senate has no confidence in the ability of the central administration to effectively address the ongoing crisis of sexual assault at Cornell University.” “This is just the start of what we’re hoping will be a wave of change,” Ariana Kim, an associate professor of music who was one of the resolution’s co-sponsors, told the New York Times. She said she hoped that new leaders could step into positions of authority that “have a better pulse on what life and needs look like for our students.” But Board of Trustees Chair Anne Meinig Smalling quickly issued a statement that the board “fully supports President Kotlikoff and his administration.” The statement said “The Board of Trustees remains confident that President Kotlikoff and his administration are the right leaders to thoughtfully and comprehensively address the serious problem of sexual assault on our campus.

Paul Ortiz is Professor of Labor History & Faculty Senator, School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR), Cornell University. He is the lead sponsoring faculty senator of the Vote of No Confidence resolution. This article is adapted from his remarks during the Senate debate on October 14 and October 28.

Cornell’s Crisis of Trust: Systemic Change or Just Damage Control?

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Cornell University President Michael I. Kotlikoff and Board of Trustees Chair Anne Meinig Smalling are engaged in an evolving reputation damage control operation aimed at addressing the local and nationwide furor over the university’s handling of allegations that a female student was gang raped at a campus fraternity house in 2024.

Statue of Andrew Dickson White, Cornell’s co-founder and first president, in the Arts Quad

A key stage in the operation came October 13 when a Kotlikoff statement declared that he was “deeply sorry for the harm Jane Doe suffered,” announced immediate actions to prevent sexual violence and improve support for survivors as “first steps toward systemic change on our campus,” and along with Smalling sat down for a 90-minute interview with The New York Times that included a photo of the pair together strolling on the bucolic Ithaca campus.

The furor erupted September 18 when the student-run Cornell Daily Sun reported that a plaintiff identified as “Jane Doe” had filed a lawsuit September 14 against Cornell, her alleged perpetrators, Chi Phi fraternity, and other entities and persons; it worsened October 1 after a New York Times report that the Cornell University Police Department omitted the victim’s “unequivocal statement that she had been raped” in submitting their investigation to prosecutors for possible criminal charges.

Jane Doe’s lawsuit accuses Cornell of: “Failure to protect Plaintiff from a known danger; failure to have sufficient policies and procedures in place to prevent sex abuse and assault being committed by any of their students; failure to properly implement policies and procedures to prevent sex abuse and assault; failure to take reasonable measures to ensure that policies and procedures to prevent sex abuse and assault were working; failure to investigate risks of sexual assault; failure to properly train the employees at their facilities; failed [sic] to have any outside agency test their safety procedures; and failure to train its employees properly to identify signs of sexual abuse and sexual assault.” She seeks compensatory and punitive damages.

Kotlikoff’s October 13 actions and promises of coming reform amounted to his first substantial response to the crisis of trust. It is not clear that Cornell’s damage control operation will quickly contain the crisis, nor is it clear that Kotlikoff’s systemic change will ever come to pass.

That is because a long record of indifference and lack of transparency of Kotlikoff, other senior Cornell administrators, and trustees in areas of student mental health including sexual assault raise serious doubts about whether Cornell will follow through on systemic reforms. It also raises doubts about whether Kotlikoff himself can be trusted to lead the effort as he insists on doing and rejects calls for his removal.

Those doubts are exemplified by Kotlikoff’s seeming indifference to the Jane Doe case going back to her initial allegations in 2024 until it exploded into a public relations catastrophe for the 161-year-old Ivy League school.

Studies show that 80 percent of campus sexual assaults against females are never reported to police, typically for fear of not being believed, provoking reprisal, being blamed, losing privacy, distrusting law enforcement, or feeling shame.

According to the New York Times interview, Kotlikoff acknowledged that he learned a Cornell student had taken this difficult step in November 2024, coming forward to his campus police with allegations of particularly horrific acts of sexual violence.

Yet, in the months afterward, Kotlikoff did nothing to follow up with her or seek to learn whether any of the accused men had been punished, according to the interview.

Kotlikoff claimed that he was not informed when the Tompkins County District Attorney declined to bring charges, which reportedly was due to an incomplete summary investigative report his police provided to prosecutors. Kotlikoff also said he did not know that the woman had dropped out of Cornell until two years later—after September 14 when she slapped her lawsuit on the university, the New York Times reported.

Kotlikoff’s failure of responsibility to keep himself informed about the handling of such a heinous alleged crime that took place on his watch speaks to a lip-service indifference about the rape culture on his campus.

And if indeed Kotlikoff was unaware, it also speaks to a broader institutional dysfunction and failure of accountability—again, on Kotlikoff’s watch—when other campus leaders, such as the head of public safety and student affairs, failed to keep a university president up to date about such a serious case and one that carried potential harm to Cornell’s reputation and financial stability.

“High and Persistent Rates of Sexual Assault”

Kotlikoff’s and the institution’s indifference is all the more telling considering that campus leaders are very well aware of the longstanding persistence of sexual assault on the Cornell campus. Jane Doe’s experience became just another statistic, it seems.

Nearly a quarter of surveyed Cornell undergraduate women (23.3 percent) reported being sexually assaulted with 9.5 percent of assaults involving nonconsensual sexual intercourse, according to the 2023 Cornell Survey of Sexual Assault and Related Misconduct, the most recent survey at the time of Jane Doe’s alleged assault.

In 2021 and 2019 SARM surveys, 20.9 percent and 26.8 percent of Cornell undergraduate women, respectively, reported being sexually assaulted. In the most recent survey in 2025, 34.9 percent of undergraduate women surveyed reported being sexually assaulted with 18.9 percent involving sexual penetration—the latter figure being double the percentage from two years earlier. Cornell routinely announces the results of the SARM surveys, which are mandated by New York state law, on its University Statements webpage.

Victims of sexual assault may suffer lasting and even lifetime physical as well as mental health consequences, such as depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, and post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Doubts about Cornell’s newfound commitment to systemic change are also raised by how the Cornell administration seemed to instinctively prioritize reputation damage control over institutional or personal accountability in its initial responses to Jane Doe’s lawsuit and the furor it sparked.

The timeline shows that Cornell’s first public response was on September 21 not from Kotlikoff but Kyle Kimball, Vice President for University Relations. He said the university was “aware of a lawsuit” and reassured the campus community that it had “investigated and adjudicated the allegations consistent with university policies.” The statement emphasized that Cornell launched a Presidential Task Force on Campus Sexual Assault shortly after “this incident” and that several of its recommendations were implemented and others were in development.

A week later, on September 28, Kimball issued a second university statement on the issue, supporting the Tompkins County District Attorney’s announcement that he would launch a new grand jury investigation into Jane Doe’s case. (Just three days later, on October 1, Governor Kathy Hochul apparently surprised Cornell administrators by removing the District Attorney for not following up on the Cornell police’s incomplete report and appointing New York Attorney General Letitia James to take over a new investigation into the assault allegations.)

Kimball’s September 28 statement made no mention of Cornell initiating its own internal or external review of its handling of the Jane Doe case, which by then had drawn intense local and nationwide interest. Instead, more than half of the statement emphasized that Cornell had “conducted a thorough Title IX investigation”—a non-criminal internal process that reviews sexual assault allegations—and that a “hearing panel issued a range of sanctions, which included expulsions and suspensions.”

“Any suggestion that the university did not impose consequential punishments for those involved is false. None of the individuals charged were offered the opportunity to write essays as a sole consequence of their involvement,” Kimball said.

The next day, September 29, a third university statement went out, signed by Kotlikoff, Trustees Chair Smalling, and Provost Kavita Bala. Titled “Resources and support for sexual assault and misconduct,” the statement again took note of the Presidential Task Force on Sexual Assault’s recommendations to “create meaningful institutional change.”

“We will continue to examine and strengthen our policies to ensure we are doing all we can to foster a culture where sexual misconduct is never tolerated, those who come forward are supported, and individuals found responsible through our processes are held accountable,” the statement said, without noting any specific or immediate steps.

President Kotlikoff Surfaces

On October 3, 19 days after Jane Doe’s lawsuit against Cornell, Kotlikoff finally addressed the Cornell community in an 8:23 video message. Although his administration had taken no public steps to review its handling of the Jane Doe matter, Kotlikoff said the university would cooperate with New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s demand on September 29 that Cornell appoint an outside law firm to do so.

Kotlikoff otherwise made no announcement of specific concrete steps his administration would immediately take to address the “unacceptably high and persistent rates of sexual assault” on Cornell’s campus, as his “presidential task force” had called it.

Kotlikoff said his “heart aches when I think of what she experienced” but did not apologize or take personal or institutional responsibility for “what happened to Jane Doe in 2024” or express regret for how Cornell responded to her allegations.

His first comments in the video message were not on Jane Doe’s trauma but on how Cornellians are “angry, saddened, and struggling,” and how it will “weigh heavily on our community for years to come.” He spoke about “strengthening individual accountability” at Cornell’s fraternity houses but said nothing about strengthening accountability for Cornell’s leaders.

Despite Cornell’s claims that its officials had conducted “a thorough Title IX investigation” and the fact that as university president he himself could seek access to the case records, Kotlikoff said in his videotaped message that “we don’t have all the answers.” He then told the New York Times on October 13 that he and other school officials did not get a full picture of Jane Doe’s allegations and the subsequent investigation until early October.

In his videotaped message on October 3 and in the New York Times interview on October 13, Kotlikoff emphasized his creation of the Presidential Task Force on Sexual Assault as earlier proof of his administration’s commitment to improving sexual assault policies.

That, too, had the hallmarks of a reputation damage control operation.

The task force was an internal project led by his own senior administrators rather than external experts who themselves had long been responsible for curbing sexual assault at Cornell. The task force was created on February 6, 2025 and issued its report on March 10, 2026, seven months past Kotlikoff’s announced deadline.

Although statements issued by Kotlikoff and other university officials have claimed that the task force’s March 10 recommendations were being implemented, none pointed to even a single specific change that has been made.

The task force report contained boilerplate recommendations focused on “enhancing” education and information programs Cornell largely already has in place: making sure students are more aware of Greek fraternity and sorority system sexual assault “scorecards”; resources available to rape victims; and options and processes for reporting sexual assault. It called for an increase in staffing programs but proposed cutting Victim Advocacy Program support for the entire large population of Cornell faculty and staff members.

Among the task force’s recommendations to “enhance physical safety” were to “examine feasibility of safe ride services” and making students aware of a GPS location-sharing app. (In 2023, a senior Cornell official lauded putting coat racks on the main floor rather than upstairs in Cornell’s fraternity houses, to make it easier for women to leave parties, as “an effective strategy for sexual violence prevention.”)

But the task force report had nothing to say about reforming the two Cornell entities now at the center of the Jane Doe scandal, the Cornell University Police Department and the Office of Civil Rights (Title IX), or addressing the role the Greek system has played over the years in the campus rape culture.

Nor did the report mention reviewing the alleged gang rape and subsequent police and Title IX investigations involving the Chi Phi fraternity, despite the case having been the trigger for establishing the task force.

“I will not allow anyone to sweep this case under the rug”

On October 6, responding to Governor Hochul’s demand, Trustees Chair Smalling announced the appointment of the Atlanta-based King & Spalding international law firm “to lead a comprehensive independent review of how the university prevents and responds to sexual harassment, sexual assault and related misconduct on campus.”

Despite statements from Kotlikoff, Smalling and other Cornell officials touting the Presidential Task Force on Sexual Assault’s recommendations and its “months of rigorous study and community conversations, including student focus groups, faculty expertise, research reviews, peer benchmarking, and analysis of historical and recent Cornell survey data,” hiring an expensive law firm to conduct an entirely new “comprehensive independent review” amounted to an admission that Kotlikoff’s task force had not been sufficient for developing needed reforms if it was not mainly for show.

As announced, the charge to King & Spalding is vague, which is why The Sophie Fund asked Smalling on October 14 to release Cornell’s letter of engagement that spells out the firm’s precise mandate, scope of its factual inquiry, and terms governing its independence and authority.

In its construction, Smalling’s announcement focused on the “comprehensive” review of Cornell’s “policies, practices, and resources” and somewhat downplayed an investigation into Cornell’s handling of Jane Doe’s case that was at the heart of Hochul’s demand on September 29.

Smalling said that “as part of that broader mandate”—not as the prime focus of the mandate—King & Spalding would conduct a detailed review of the university’s response to Jane Doe’s allegations “including whether Cornell followed its policies and procedures.”

Hochul had demanded to know if Cornell officials may have intentionally thwarted victim allegations for the sake of its Ivy League prestige. It was the New York Times report about Cornell failing to provide the District Attorney with Jane Doe’s rape allegation that apparently prompted Hochul to demand an outside counsel inquiry and also to appoint the New York Attorney General to replace the Tompkins County District Attorney in leading a new investigation into the rape allegations.

“No institution gets to protect its reputation at the expense of a young person seeking justice. No public official gets to look the other way when the system breaks down and fails our young people. And as governor, I will not allow anyone to sweep this case under the rug,” Hochul said.

On October 13, a full month after Jane Doe filed her lawsuit and as Cornell’s reputation and his was under siege by campus protests and national headlines, Kotlikoff finally issued a statement personally apologizing “for the harm that Jane Doe suffered,” accepting accountability by “acknowledging where we have fallen short,” and announcing “immediate” implementation of measures to prevent sexual assaults and better support survivors.

The measures were substantial if falling short of permanent systemic change: suspending all parties and social events at fraternities and sororities for the remainder of the 2026-2027 academic year; adding staff to the Cornell Office of Civil Rights which handles Title IX investigations; adding staff for victim support and prevention education; and bringing in experienced, trauma-informed criminal investigators from the New York State Police to handle sexual assault allegations for a limited period.

Kotlikoff’s stated determination to prevent sexual assault, and indeed his ambition to now become a national leader on the issue, represents a sudden and sharp change of direction whose sincerity and commitment to follow through deserve to be questioned.

Kotlikoff, a professor of molecular physiology, has been at Cornell since 2000 and has served as interim president and then the university’s 15th president since July 2024. His annual salary is $1,298,688. Before that, he held a top university leadership position as Cornell’s longest-serving provost under three presidents from 2015 to 2024; he was dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine from 2007 to 2015.

Despite having been a top Cornell decision-maker for over a decade, in announcing his new measures Kotlikoff determined: “The time for meaningful and lasting change at Cornell, and at campuses across the country, is now.”

Why, considering the longstanding persistence of sexual assault on the campus, didn’t Cornell create a Presidential Task Force on Sexual Assault until the explosive Jane Doe allegations in 2024? Why didn’t Kotlikoff’s task force recommend measures for “meaningful and lasting change at Cornell” that Kotlikoff says will now be pursued by the outside King & Spalding law firm?

Cornell’s Pattern of Unaccountability

Kotlikoff’s promise of “systemic change” also stands in contrast with the failures of transparency and accountability that Kotlikoff and his predecessor Martha E. Pollack displayed in their handling of student mental health reform in the very recent past.

The Sophie Fund strongly advocated for a task force to comprehensively review Cornell’s mental health policies and practices and make recommendations for systemic improvement.

In an April 2017 letter asking Pollack to appoint a task force, The Sophie Fund’s co-founders noted:

“[Cornell’s] failure to develop a policy and strategy that addresses the disturbing mental health-related problem of sexual violence against Cornell students and provides effective support for victims of sexual violence.”

—“A lack of institutional accountability for Cornell’s mental health policies, programs, and practices.”

—“An institutional mindset reflecting complacency and defensiveness that appears to prioritize Cornell’s public image over the welfare of students struggling with mental disorders.”

—“A system of accountability would include a zero-tolerance program with robust measures to fight against rape and sexual violence, and hazing, and equally robust legal and psychological support services for victims.”

—“31.6 percent—nearly 1 in 3—reported being victims of rape or sexual battery during their years in college; 9.8 percent of undergraduate female students participating in a recent campus climate survey reported having been the victims of rape or attempted rape since enrolling at Cornell.”

After initially rejecting our request but facing student pressure, Pollack finally commissioned an eternally led Mental Health Review task force 17 months later in 2018, and the task force issued its report with recommendations in 2020.

Pollack’s administration set up an Executive Accountability Committee to implement the recommendations and report back to the Cornell community on progress—steps The Sophie Fund commended at the time. But her administration abolished the committee in 2022 and never provided a full accounting.

Starting in April 2025, The Sophie Fund wrote to Kotlikoff five times asking Cornell to report back to the Cornell and Ithaca communities about what had been done with the task force’s 130 recommendations including those dealing with sexual violence and student safety.

“Transparently fulfilling a commitment to hold itself accountable will enhance confidence and respect in how Cornell is supporting its students’ well-being and acting as a responsible and valued part of the greater community,” we wrote.

But Kotlikoff declined our request, arguing that the Cornell administration had moved on from the 2020 recommendations in favor of a “Health Promoting Campus initiative.”

Before and after the Mental Health Review recommendations were issued, The Sophie Fund repeatedly emphasized the need for stronger sexual assault prevention efforts.

In a presentation to the Mental Health Review task force in 2019, The Sophie Fund urged:

“The review teams should consider recommendations aimed at forcefully ending the cycle of sexual assault and hazing violence in the Cornell community and ensuring the maximum mental health support for victims at risk of life-long psychological disorders as a result of their trauma.”

In a 2020 presentation to the task force, The Sophie Fund called on Cornell leadership to “develop new and effective strategies to combat the serious problems of sexual assault and hazing within its student body.”

The presentation added:

“Research indicates that victims of sexual assault and hazing are at risk of life-long mental health problems. Data indicates that the prevalence of sexual assault and hazing at Cornell has reached levels that no civilized institution should accept. Past and present strategies have failed to eliminate or even reduce the problems. To allow these problems to continue without a robust and effective response is a serious abrogation of responsibility.”

In The Sophie Fund’s post-report presentation in 2021 to the Cornell Executive Accountability Committee, three years before Jane Doe’s alleged assault, The Sophie Fund urged Cornell to implement the kinds of concrete changes that Kotlikoff claimed under severe pressure on October 13 are now underway:

“Introduce new zero-tolerance university regulations and implement robust new campus education and awareness programs with the publicly stated goal of terminating the stubborn normalization of sexual assault and hazing violence among Cornell students, in recognition that previous initiatives have failed to stem student sexual violence or end the destructive hazing culture; ensure that perpetrators of violence, intimidation, and criminal recklessness are held strictly accountable under university regulations, and ensure perpetrators are also held accountable under applicable local, state, and federal laws; mandate the vice president for Student & Campus Life to issue annual reports on steps addressing sexual assault and hazing violence, the results of those efforts, and identifying necessary further steps to be taken.

What’s “Good for Cornell’s Reputation”?

Despite the long record of failings of transparency and accountability, the 75-year-old Kotlikoff now envisions himself as the university president who can set a new nationwide standard for addressing campus sexual assault.

In the New York Times interview on October 13, Kotlikoff acknowledged that his administration had broken the trust of the campus community. “I’ve heard enough from the community that there is a loss of trust. People are angry. I understand that anger,” he said. But he said he would not resign over that broken trust, acting as if the alleged Jane Doe assault was just an isolated incident rather than a longstanding pattern of sexual violence on the Cornell campus and on his watch.

“A horrible event happened at Cornell University. How do we make that into something where we now lead in this area and become known for having responded to it in the appropriate way? That, to me, is the challenge of my term,” he said.

In the same interview, Trustees Chair Smalling, a third-generation Cornellian who appears to be in her early 60s and whose late father Peter C. Meinig chaired the Cornell Board of Trustees from 2022 to 2011, expressed full support for Kotlikoff:

“I understand the frustration. I understand the anger. I think what Mike and his team are doing is facing the problem head on. Taking action. Listening to the community. Understanding the issues, trying to find solutions, looking for ways to improve, looking for ways to be better.

Ultimately, I hope that what comes out of this situation is us as an institution being held up as, ‘Here’s an institution that faced criticism, faced the problem head on, and found ways to make itself better.’”

During an October14 Cornell Faculty Senate debate on a proposal for a “no-confidence” vote on the administration’s ability “to effectively address the ongoing crisis of sexual assault,” Kotlikoff pushed back on calls for him to be replaced.

“If this university feels that they will solve this problem by replacing a president, that itself is not good for Cornell’s reputation. I don’t think it’s the right way to address situations like this,” Kotlikoff told the Senate.

On the day of the debate, Jane Doe wrote a letter to the Faculty Senate, published by the New York Times on October 20, saying, “I felt unsupported and disbelieved by President Kotlikoff.”

She relayed a “second-hand account” of a conversation she said that the president of her sorority had with Kotlikoff in which he asked, “Why did she wait so long to report it.”

“It diminished my confidence in the administration’s ability to approach my experience with the understanding, sensitivity, and fairness I had hoped for and expected from what had been my dream school,” Jane Doe wrote. She said she came forth with the Kotlikoff story to the Faculty Senate “to provide information that its members may wish to consider or investigate further.”

According to reports in the New York Times and Cornell Daily Sun, a Cornell spokesperson said that Kotlikoff’s remark was not questioning Jane Doe’s actions but those of “bystanders who did not use Cornell’s anonymous tip line.”

The Faculty Senate is scheduled to resume debate on the non-confidence measure on October 28.

Community Statement Concerning Cornell University

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We, leaders and stakeholders serving the Ithaca and Tompkins County communities, demand that the Cornell University Board of Trustees and senior Ithaca campus officials take immediate, transparent, and effective steps toward terminating the campus sexual assault culture that Cornell acknowledges has persisted for too long.

We share the outrage that has been expressed by New York Governor Kathy Hochul, Cornell students, Cornell faculty, Cornell alumni, Ithaca and Tompkins County community members, and Americans across the country over the handling of allegations that Jane Doe was gang raped at the Chi Phi fraternity house on the Cornell campus on October 19-20, 2024.

We support Governor Hochul’s appointment of Attorney General Letitia James to conduct a new investigation of the allegations and the Governor’s call for Cornell to appoint outside counsel to review how university officials handled Jane Doe’s sexual assault report.

We speak out collectively because the persistence of sexual assault involving Cornellians impacts the wider Ithaca and Tompkins County communities. Our medical and emergency services, behavioral health providers, and sexual assault advocates are directly involved in supporting Cornell students who experience sexual assault or are affected by it in other ways. Members of our communities including our children are constantly alerted to incidents of sexual misconduct related to the Cornell campus.

We agree with Governor Hochul when she stated: “This culture has to stop. And in New York, we’re going to do everything we can to stop it.”

In Ithaca and Tompkins County, this now begins with Cornell immediately implementing robust, zero-tolerance policies and practices for preventing sexual violence, including: educating its students about sexual assault and its root causes; procedures ensuring effective Title IX and criminal investigations of assault allegations; and meaningful and timely penalties placed on perpetrators as well as Greek organizations and other entities responsible for tolerating sexual assault on their premises.

We call on Cornell to implement a system of accountability that transparently reviews and evaluates its reforms and regularly reports back to the campus, Ithaca, and Tompkins County communities on the results.

Robert Cantelmo, Mayor, City of Ithaca

Shawna Black, Chair, Tompkins County Legislature

Lea Webb, Senate Member for District 52, New York State Senate

Anna Kelles, Assembly Member for District 125, New York State Assembly

Josephine Gibson, Mental Health Association in Tompkins County

Tiffany Bloss, Suicide Prevention & Crisis Service of Tompkins County

Crystal Howser, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Greater Central New York

Sandra Sorensen, NAMI Finger Lakes

Jennifer Brownell, Advocacy Center of Tompkins County

MindWell Psychology LLP

Anke Wessels, Center for Transformative Action

Jan Lynch, Finger Lakes Independence Center

Meryl Phipps, Village at Ithaca

Olan E. Mack, The Learning Web, Inc.

Reverend Debbie Bennett Reynolds, First Baptist Church in Ithaca

The. Rev. Dr. Jason R. Churchill, St. Luke Lutheran Church and Lutheran Campus Ministry

Rev. Kirianne E. Weaver, for the Session, First Presbyterian Church of Ithaca

Tamie Pushlar, Parents Coalition to STOP Cornell Rape Culture

Andrew Pushlar, Parents Coalition to STOP Cornell Rape Culture

Julia Taylor, Civic Ensemble

Lesley Greene, Story House Ithaca

Jonathan Miller, Story House Ithaca

Jen Pearcy-Edwards, Story House Ithaca

Darrel Harrington, Be Kind Ithaca

Samantha Shoemaker, Free Hugs Ithaca

Scott MacLeod, The Sophie Fund

October 15, 2026

What Exactly Is the Mandate for Cornell’s “Independent Review”?

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The Sophie Fund on October 14 asked the Special Committee of the Cornell University Board of Trustees to publicly release its engagement letter with King & Spalding setting out the firm’s precise mandate, scope of its factual inquiry, and terms governing its independence and authority in reviewing the university’s handling of gang rape allegations.

Cornell University Arts Quad

A letter of engagement is a document that formally establishes the terms under which a law firm is hired by an institution to conduct a review or other legal work including in such matters when the institution’s actions have created a crisis of public trust.

King & Spalding LLP has been commissioned by the Special Committee to review Cornell’s response to allegations that a Cornell undergraduate was raped at the Chi Phi fraternity house on campus in October 2024. King & Spalding is a 141-year-old Atlanta-based international law firm with 26 offices across the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific whose clients include large corporations, financial institutions, and governments.

In a letter sent to Ann Meinig Smalling, chair of the Board and of the Special Committee, The Sophie Fund said it was seeking the release of the engagement letter because the Board of Trustees Special Committee’s October 6 statement left important questions unanswered about what it means by a “detailed review” and by King & Spalding’s “full independence.”

The Sophie Fund also asked the Special Committee to commit to publishing King & Spalding’s full final report, including its full factual findings and recommendations, in full, subject only to redactions required by applicable law or necessary to protect legitimate privacy interests.

Regarding King &B Spalding’s “detailed review,” The Sophie Fund said it is seeking to know whether the engagement letter expressly includes or excludes examination of the following in Jane Doe’s case:

  • What Cornell officials knew, when they knew it, and what actions they took in response to that knowledge.
  • The actions and decisions of senior Cornell administrators and trustees.
  • The actions and decisions of Cornell University Police Department (CUPD) personnel.
  • CUPD’s referral of the matter to the Tompkins County District Attorney’s Office, including the information and evidence communicated in that referral.
  • Whether relevant evidence was appropriately identified, collected, preserved, investigated, and communicated.
  • Cornell’s Title IX investigation and disciplinary processes, to the extent applicable to this matter.
  • Communications among Cornell administrators, police personnel, fraternity officials, and other relevant parties.
  • Whether Cornell’s existing policies and procedures were reasonable, appropriate, and adequate under the circumstances, as distinct from the focus on the Special Committee’s statement on “whether Cornell followed its policies and procedures in responding to the matter.” [italics added]
  • Whether errors, omissions, or other institutional failures contributed to the handling or outcome of the matter.

Furthermore, with respect to the Special Committee’s statement that King & Spalding will have “full independence,” The Sophie Fund is seeking to know whether the engagement letter expressly addresses the following:

  • Unrestricted access to all relevant university records, documents, electronic communications, case files, and other information concerning the Jane Doe matter.
  • Full authority to determine investigative methods, identify relevant witnesses, conduct interviews, and pursue appropriate lines of inquiry.
  • Unrestricted access to relevant Cornell officials, employees, trustees, and other witnesses.
  • Full authority to expand the investigation if and when new evidence or related concerns emerge.
  • Protection against university interference with, or improper influence over, the investigation, its findings, or the preparation of its report.
  • Whether the Special Committee or other Cornell entities and officials will have an opportunity to review, edit, approve, or delay publication of the final report.

The Sophie Fund stated:

“We welcome the Cornell University Board of Trustees Special Committee’s retention of King & Spalding to conduct an independent review of Cornell’s policies and practices concerning campus sexual assault, including a detailed review of the allegations described in the civil lawsuit brought by a plaintiff known as “Jane Doe.”

“This review comes in response to serious public-trust concerns, raised by numerous parties, including New York Governor Kathy Hochul, regarding Cornell’s handling of this matter.

 “We request that the Special Committee release its engagement letter with King & Spalding, including any attachments, amendments, and terms of reference, so that the Cornell campus and Ithaca communities can fully understand the firm’s precise mandate, the scope of its factual inquiry, the terms governing its independence and authority, its reporting obligations, and Cornell’s commitment regarding public release of King & Spalding’s final report.”

Finally, The Sophie Fund is seeking clarification of Cornell’s intentions about releasing King & Spalding’s final report.

The Sophie Fund wrote: “The Special Committee’s statement that it ‘intends to share the results and recommendations’ [italics added] of the review does not, by itself, establish whether the full report will be made public or whether the university will have any role in determining its contents.

“The public’s ability to assess the credibility of an independent review depends not only on the reputation of the law firm retained, but also on the scope of its assignment, the authority it has been given, and the transparency of the process and its findings.”

The Sophie Fund requested a response from the Special Committee by October 26, 2026.

Governor Hochul and the Cornell Investigation

thesophiefund

The Sophie Fund gave a presentation to members of New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s staff on October 7 on its experiences advocating for student mental health reforms at Cornell University including the need for zero-tolerance measures toward ending the high prevalence of sexual assault on the Ithaca campus.

In Executive Order 64 on October 1, Hochul directed Attorney General Letitia James to investigate the offenses alleged in a civil suit against seven Cornell students, Cornell University, and other parties by the plaintiff known as “Jane Doe.” She also demanded that Cornell commission outside counsel to undertake an independent review of how the university handled Jane Doe’s allegation that in 2024 she was gang raped at the Chi Phi fraternity house on campus.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul

Here is the text of The Sophie Fund’s presentation, delivered via Zoom by Co-Founder Scott MacLeod:

In 2016, our daughter Sophie, a Cornell senior on a mental health leave of absence from Cornell, took her own life while waiting to be re-admitted to the university.

Thereafter, my wife Susan and I established The Sophie Fund as a nonprofit advocacy organization to campaign for improved mental health support for young people in the greater Ithaca community including its college campuses.

I am also a current member of the New York State Suicide Prevention Council within the Office of Mental Health. OMH presented The Sophie Fund with its Excellence in Suicide Prevention Award in 2018.

By the way, professionally I was a TIME Magazine foreign correspondent for 25 years.

Thank you for this opportunity to share experiences and perspectives.

I’d like to share our experience that I think sheds light on the institutional indifference that provides some valuable context for the Jane Doe case.

And, from our perspective, how Cornell responded to the Jane Doe allegations—and to the furor that it is now causing—doesn’t instill confidence that much will change at Cornell.

For the past 10 years, The Sophie Fund has repeatedly urged the Cornell administration to reform its policies for student mental health, suicide prevention, and sexual assault prevention.

We have specifically and repeatedly warned Cornell administrators about the need for robust new policies to end the cycle of sexual assault on their campus.

Unfortunately, what we have experienced is foot dragging on promises of systemic change and a failure of accountability on the part of Cornell’s leaders.

Here’s the most palpable example of what we experienced.

In 2018, then Cornell President Martha E. Pollack commissioned a task force to review student mental health. We had led a campaign for a task force that was joined by students. She only agreed after foot dragging and gaslighting for a year and a half.

In our April 2017 letter to Pollack asking for the task force, we noted:

—“[Cornell’s] failure to develop a policy and strategy that addresses the disturbing mental health-related problem of sexual violence against Cornell students and provides effective support for victims of sexual violence.”

—“A lack of institutional accountability for Cornell’s mental health policies, programs, and practices.”

—“An institutional mindset reflecting complacency and defensiveness that appears to prioritize Cornell’s public image over the welfare of students struggling with mental disorders.”

—“A system of accountability would include a zero-tolerance program with robust measures to fight against rape and sexual violence, and hazing, and equally robust legal and psychological support services for victims.”

—“31.6 percent—nearly 1 in 3—reported being victims of rape or sexual battery during their years in college; 9.8 percent of undergraduate female students participating in a recent campus climate survey reported having been the victims of rape or attempted rape since enrolling at Cornell.”

The Mental Health Review task force report Pollack finally commissioned was good. It was led by Dr. Michael Hogan, a former New York State Commissioner of Mental Health and a widely respected national leader in mental health and suicide prevention.

Initially, Pollack’s team set up what they called the “Executive Accountability Committee” to review and implement Hogan’s recommendations. Her administration promised to regularly update the Cornell community on the progress. The Sophie Fund commended these steps at the time.

After a couple years of no clear action, Pollack’s administration abolished the Executive Accountability Committee. It also failed to fill senior healthcare related vacancies that were critical to implementing the mental health recommendations.

For example, the Cornell administration left vacant for two and a half years the position of Assistant Vice President for Student Health and Well-being.

These are not the actions of a university that is intent on protecting its students’ mental health and safety.

After experiencing frustration after being told over and over that a full accounting of the recommendations was still in the works, we wrote to President Michael I. Kotlikoff five times during the course of 2025.

We implored him to issue a report on what the Cornell administration had done with the task force’s 130 recommendations. After all, they had promised to do so.

Obviously—and a prestigious research institution like Cornell knows this very well—it was important that Cornell identify any changes that it had made and evaluate their effectiveness, as well as explain why it had not yet implemented any recommendations. True quality improvement is ongoing work.

We wrote: “Transparently fulfilling a commitment to hold itself accountable will enhance confidence and respect in how Cornell is supporting its students’ well-being and acting as a responsible and valued part of the greater community.”

Remember, by 2025 the students who had campaigned for a task force had long ago graduated. New student leaders on the campus didn’t even know there had been a task force.

After a summer of back-and-forth exchanges, Kotlikoff refused our request to inform the Cornell and Ithaca communities what Cornell had done with the recommendations. Cornell had moved on, he said.

A few more recent signs that suggest to us that the Cornell administration has not learned the lesson of accountability.

Kotlikoff issued a statement last Saturday, and Board Chair Smalling issued one yesterday. They both spoke of Cornell striving to be a national leader in sexual assault prevention.

But in the wake of this tremendously troubling Jane Doe case, with the fury of the campus and the nation directed at the Cornell administration, neither mentioned a single change of personnel or policy or practice that would take place immediately.

Finally, the allegations of gang rape in October 2024 led Kotlikoff to establish a Presidential Task Force on Sexual Assault in February 2025. He said it would deliver a report in the summer of 2025. The report came out only in March 2026.

People following this are not too impressed with the task force’s recommendations. And, apparently, neither is the Cornell Board of Trustees. In engaging King & Spalding, the Board tasked its team with reviewing “how the University prevents and responds to sexual harassment, sexual assault, and related misconduct on campus.”

Why Kotlikoff’s presidential task force did not do that is an important question. I believe the answer is that Cornell leadership is intent on downplaying the problem. The task force was for show.

Governor Hochul was on to something when she stated, “No institution gets to protect its reputation at the expense of a young person seeking justice.”

I know from discussions with many leaders and stakeholders and parents in Ithaca over the last two weeks that there is great anger and distress among local citizens who are not part of the Cornell campus. The persistence of sexual assault involving Cornellians has always impacted the wider Ithaca and Tompkins County communities.

Our medical and emergency services, behavioral health providers, and sexual assault advocates are directly involved in supporting Cornell students who experience sexual assault or are affected by it in other ways. Members of our community including our children are constantly alerted to incidents of sexual misconduct related to the Cornell campus.

We very much doubt that the Cornell administration would have reviewed its handling of the Jane Doe allegations on its own—if Governor Hochul had not demanded that they do so.

No matter what the new investigations bring about, we fear from frustrating experience that Cornell will pay lip service to reform and fail to follow through on systemic change with transparency and accountability as the Governor is demanding.

Students will move on. Attention will move on.

We deeply appreciate Governor Hochul’s intervention and her overall championing of health and safety for our young people throughout New York State. We pray that her leadership and influence will be a critical factor in ending the rape culture on the Cornell campus.