A former Cornell student known as Jane Doe has told the university’s Faculty Senate that she felt “unsupported and disbelieved” by president Michael Kotlikoff after reporting alleged sexual assaults at a fraternity house in 2024.
Her letter was sent earlier this month as the Faculty Senate considers whether to hold a no-confidence vote in Mr Kotlikoff’s administration. She said she was repeating a second-hand account of a conversation involving the president and the then-president of Cornell’s Tri Delta sorority chapter.
Jane Doe wrote that the sorority president had been concerned by what she understood to be Mr Kotlikoff’s initial response: “Why did she wait so long to report it?” She said the comment was interpreted as questioning the truth of her account.
She reported the alleged assault to campus police on 8 November 2024, about three weeks after she said it occurred at the Chi Phi fraternity house.
Cornell has disputed her description of the president’s remarks, saying it was “incorrect, based on a documented first-hand account”. The university said the question about why it had taken so long to report the assault was directed at bystanders who had not used Cornell’s anonymous tip line, despite social media activity about the incident in October 2024.
“He was not questioning Jane Doe’s reporting,” Cornell said.
Jane Doe wrote that learning of the comment had “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”.
She said she was sharing the account because, to her knowledge, only a small number of people knew about the conversation and she did not know whether members of the Faculty Senate were among them.
Her lawyer said the letter had been provided to the Dean of Faculty and the Speaker of the Faculty Senate for informational purposes as they considered resolutions or motions. Jane Doe was asking the Senate to give the letter “whatever weight or credibility it deems appropriate”, the lawyer said.
The way Cornell and its leadership handled the original report is among the issues raised in a civil lawsuit Jane Doe filed last month against the university, the Chi Phi fraternity, seven of its then-members and others, including her former sorority, Delta Delta Delta.
The seven former fraternity members have denied wrongdoing and none has been charged with a crime.
A former president of Chi Phi was removed from the lawsuit in a court filing on Tuesday. His lawyer, Eric Bernstein, said his client had not been serving as fraternity president when the alleged assault took place.
“We’re not validating or commenting on the charges or the allegations themselves but they had the wrong guy here. We’re happy with the outcome,” Mr Bernstein said.
