--- title: "Grief and Anger Settle Over Cornell as Pressure Builds in Assault Case" description: "Students describe a somber campus weeks after Jane Doe’s lawsuit, as the university president promises an outside review" author: "Nate Ledger" published: 2026-10-04T07:16:32.158Z modified: 2026-10-04T09:02:15Z url: https://rews.cc/a/grief-and-anger-settle-over-cornell-as-pressure-builds-in-as-78fe6e language: en tags: ["education", "crime", "law", "health", "politics", "us"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # Grief and Anger Settle Over Cornell as Pressure Builds in Assault Case *Students describe a somber campus weeks after Jane Doe’s lawsuit, as the university president promises an outside review* By Nate Ledger · October 4, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/grief-and-anger-settle-over-cornell-as-pressure-builds-in-as-78fe6e ## In brief - A lawsuit filed last month by a former student alleges a gang rape at a Cornell fraternity house in October 2024; no criminal charges resulted - President Michael Kotlikoff called the allegations “deeply disturbing” and said an outside law firm’s independent review will be announced next week - Records show prosecutors declined to review evidence beyond Doe’s six-page statement and never received her fuller November 2024 interview transcript - Gov. Hochul removed DA Matthew Van Houten from the reopened case and gave it to Attorney General Letitia James - Students interviewed by CNN described grief, anger, online harassment and demands for greater transparency from the university By surface appearance, Ithaca this weekend looks like the brochure version of itself: early fall foliage, a man in overalls selling flowers in the sun, students crowded around tables outside Collegetown Bagels just off the Cornell University campus. CNN’s reporters, who spent time there, recorded one detail that does not fit the brochure. Hanging from student co-op housing was a handmade banner: “Protect students, not rapists. Admin resign.” The banner is a response to a lawsuit filed last month by a former student identified as Jane Doe, who alleges she was the victim of a gang rape in a fraternity house in October 2024. The case produced no criminal charges when it was first reported, and the filing has ignited criticism of how both the university and the local district attorney handled it -- and revived a national argument about how schools, police and prosecutors respond to campus sexual assault allegations. In his first public remarks since the lawsuit, university president Michael Kotlikoff called Doe’s allegations “deeply disturbing” and said, “This is a defining moment in Cornell’s history.” He acknowledged the university does not have all the answers and must “do better” to prevent sexual violence, and said he welcomes an independent review by an outside law firm into Cornell’s initial handling of the case, which he said would be announced next week. Records obtained by the New York Times show how thin the original criminal investigation was. The Tompkins County District Attorney’s Office declined at the time to review any additional evidence gathered by Cornell’s campus police -- including further interviews -- beyond a six-page statement signed by Doe. Prosecutors expressed no interest in the additional material because they had already concluded, based on that statement, that “criminal charges would not be pursued in this case,” a Cornell police investigator wrote in a note documenting the call, according to the Times. What the fuller record contained, according to documents since obtained by CNN and its affiliate WCBS, is Doe’s account that she was “pretty ok” with aspects of an initial encounter but did not consent to other sexual activities later that night, and, in a transcript of a November 2024 interview with police, her statement: “I can say with 100% confidence I was raped.” Prosecutors never received that transcript when Cornell police furnished the much briefer written statement, according to the local district attorney and New York’s governor. Doe’s attorney told CNN he believes his client consented to none of the encounters at issue and was at first “in denial,” then ashamed, before understanding she had been raped. Gov. Kathy Hochul has now removed the case from Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten -- who had reopened it after the lawsuit was filed -- and handed it to Attorney General Letitia James, vowing to unravel the investigation’s failures. Van Houten, DA since 2017, said he supports James’ appointment. On campus, the students CNN interviewed described a changed atmosphere. Alexandra Pogyo Samaniego, a freshman who had dreamed of attending Cornell as her older sister had, said she wakes every morning thinking of Doe’s case and now feels “disillusioned”; the “buzz” she arrived to has been replaced by “quietness.” She described anxiety that has made her miss classes, disbelief, anger, and resentment over what she sees as a lack of transparency and student input. She spoke outside Willard Straight Hall, the site of a 1969 student occupation against racial injustice. > It’s this really deep sorrow at the fact that this could have happened to Jane Doe, but also this could happen to anybody on campus. It could happen to your female friends, it could happen to your male friends, it also could very much be you Jonah Van der Linden, a senior, said he broke down in tears earlier in the week from accumulated emotion, and that conversations about homework or plans now tend to become conversations about the allegations. He spent an hour with a sorority president brainstorming support for her chapter, wrote for the student-run magazine Collegetown about how the student body might begin to heal, and has made time to talk with the men in his life about consent. “You need to talk to your friends and spend time with your friends and put effort into your friendships, especially people who are survivors, and especially women feeling unsafe,” he said. Students also described a wave of online harassment directed at them from outside the university; Pogyo Samaniego said people have told her to transfer. “More and more people are walking with their heads down, and I mean that literally,” said freshman Darius Pierce, who added that support for Doe across campus is overwhelming. Senior Ava Farkash still remembers the confusion of reading the university’s initial email about Doe’s case in 2024 and senses her classmates are angrier now, much of it directed at the administration. “We all need something to come of this and something to be resolved because stuff like this happens all the time. And it’s just so frustrating when nothing ever changes,” she said. She also wonders what her degree will signal now: “In a world where it’s already so incredibly difficult to get a job, I’m scared that it will be even harder now that I, by default, am associated with this reputation.” The outside law firm’s review is expected to be announced next week. What it examines, and who it names, will say a good deal about whether the university intends this moment to be a reckoning or a weather event. For help in the US, the National Sexual Assault Hotline is 1-800-656-4673, or online.rainn.org.