Cornell Protesters Rally Behind Jane Doe, Call for University President’s Resignation

Cornell University faculty are considering a no-confidence vote against the administration as student protests spread across campus over allegations of sexual assault on Tuesday.

The resolution has received backing from 40 of the Faculty Senate’s 75 voting members, according to Prof. Paul Ortiz, who sponsored the measure.

“As you may suspect, we were approached in our capacity as faculty senators by numerous Cornell colleagues demanding action,” Ortiz wrote. “Many of these faculty—including myself—were approached by students at Cornell who are upset, fearful for their personal safety, and wanting our university to address the perennial problem of sexual assault on the campus.”

Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff also faced pointed questions from students during a campus assembly Monday, as demonstrations disrupted the university.

“We’re not hiding anything at Cornell,” Kotlikoff told students, according to the Cornell Daily Sun. “You will hear proposals from us going forward around what we’re going to do to try and improve this culture and address this problem.”

Kotlikoff has continued to reject calls from students that he resign.

A lawsuit accuses seven former Chi Phi fraternity members of drugging and raping a Cornell student during an October 2024 night at the fraternity house involving alcohol, drugs and group sex.

The woman, identified as Jane Doe in court documents, alleges that the men assaulted her after she arrived intoxicated and was pressured to take ketamine and other drugs. The defendants deny wrongdoing. Some say the sexual activity was consensual, while others deny taking part. None of the seven men has been criminally charged.

The allegations have triggered a political and legal crisis. New York Attorney General Letitia James said Friday that her office was pursuing an “active criminal investigation” after Gov. Kathy Hochul designated the Attorney General’s Office as special prosecutor. Cornell has also agreed to hire outside counsel for an independent examination of how the university handled the allegations.

The dispute centers on conflicting descriptions of the night in question, including differences between Doe’s account in the weeks afterward, information prosecutors say they received from Cornell police and the detailed allegations in a lawsuit filed nearly two years later.

Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten, who initially declined to bring charges, said Doe’s sworn statement from November 2024 did not claim that she had been drugged against her will or gang-raped. Instead, he said, the statement characterized her drug use and sexual activity as “voluntary, conscious, and consensual.”