Leah Willingham
Ithaca, New York: Cornell University suspended parties at fraternity houses until next year and is giving state police a role in investigating reports of sexual assault on campus in the school’s latest response to outrage over its handling of a gang rape allegation.
The measures announced on Tuesday (US time) by Cornell president Michael Kotlikoff include a suspension of all parties and social events at Interfraternity Council houses through the end of the 2026-27 academic year and a new “zero tolerance” policy that would immediately suspend chapters for violations.
“These measures will provide time for a thorough review of fraternity life at Cornell to determine whether and how it can safely continue,” Kotlikoff wrote in a letter to the campus community.
Cornell has more than 20 active Interfraternity Council fraternities. The council did not immediately respond to an email request for comment. It’s unclear whether the restrictions extend to off-campus parties.
It’s not the first time Cornell has cracked down on fraternity parties. The university temporarily suspended them in 2022 after reports of a sexual assault and students being drugged at fraternity-affiliated housing.
Cornell also tightened fraternity safety rules in 2019 after freshman Antonio Tsialas was found dead in a gorge following an alleged hazing incident. A year earlier, a fraternity was placed on probation over a contest in which members competed to have sex with women they considered overweight.
Kotlikoff also committed to adding a case manager to the school’s Office of Civil Rights to help those who report sexual misconduct on the Cornell campus navigate the process, and to working with New York State Police to allow its criminal investigators – who are independent of Cornell – to investigate allegations.
Crimes reported on Cornell’s campus are generally investigated by campus police, a department that has full law enforcement powers but is controlled by the university.
The campus police force operates independently from municipal police in Ithaca, New York, where the university is located. Its officers investigated the 2024 gang rape allegations and presented their initial findings to the Tompkins County district attorney, who declined to prosecute within weeks of the woman making her first report to police.
New York’s governor removed the district attorney from the case this month after a public outcry over the lack of charges.
The investigation is now being led by New York Attorney-General Letitia James, while Cornell has hired former deputy US attorney-general Sally Yates to conduct an independent review of the university’s response.
In a lawsuit filed in September, the woman alleged that she was drugged and sexually assaulted by multiple fraternity members after attending a party at the Chi Phi house in October 2024.
She said she was pressured to use drugs and that other men entered the room while she was incapacitated. She also alleges that Snapchat messages describing her as sexually available to anyone at the house circulated among fraternity members without her knowledge.
Cornell closed the fraternity chapter and disciplined several students following an internal investigation, but no criminal charges have been filed. The seven men accused in the woman’s lawsuit have all denied her allegations, either saying that the sexual activity was consensual or that they weren’t involved.
Andrew Miltenberg, a lawyer for one of the men accused in the woman’s lawsuit, criticised the restrictions announced on Tuesday as a sweeping response to problems that extend beyond fraternities, arguing that universities promoted Greek social life but distanced themselves from it when controversies arise.
“Greek life has become the convenient target,” he said in an emailed statement. “Greek life” is a reference to fraternities due to their use of Greek letters in their names.
Miltenberg warned that parties could simply move off campus, where there would be less oversight. “Changing the address doesn’t change the behaviour.”
Kotlikoff’s announcement came a day before Cornell’s Faculty Senate was to take up a proposed resolution expressing no confidence in the administration’s ability to effectively address sexual assault on campus.
Paul Ortiz, a Cornell labour history professor who is the lead sponsor of the resolution, said on Tuesday that he welcomed the new measures but regretted that it took student protests, media coverage and the suffering of people like the woman suing the university over an alleged gang rape to prompt action.
“That the administration is only acting the day before they might be held accountable in the faculty senate is deeply troubling,” Ortiz said in an email to the Associated Press, adding that he believes the no-confidence resolution is “more important than ever.”
“The key point to understand is that scores of students, staff, faculty and alumni have approached the sponsors of the resolution to emphasise to us that the Jane Doe case is but the tip of the iceberg,” he continued. “Students and alumni have shared experiences of being raped at Cornell.”
In his Tuesday letter, Kotlikoff acknowledged that sexual violence extends beyond fraternities, saying Cornell must also confront a campus culture of excessive drinking and drug use and expand education about students’ responsibility to intervene when others are at risk.
AP
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