Students at Cornell University began what was billed as a seven-hour sit-in on Wednesday in solidarity with “Jane Doe,” the former student who alleges she was drugged and raped by multiple members of a fraternity on its Ithaca, N.Y., campus in October 2024.
“Seven hours for the seven hours she endured,” a coalition of Cornell student groups said in an Instagram post announcing the demonstration. “Seven hours of solidarity. Seven hours demanding change.”
About 80 students gathered in a campus dining hall named for Pulitzer Prize-winning author Toni Morrison on Wednesday afternoon, according to NBC News. The protest was part of “Zero Day,” which organizers described as an “economic blackout calling on students to disrupt business as usual by not attending class or spending on campus.”
A Cornell University student sits with a sign during a campus-wide sit-in on Oct. 7.
(Ryan Murphy via Getty Images)The sit-in comes two days after thousands of people took part in a campus rally protesting Cornell’s handling of Jane Doe’s allegations. Demonstrators held signs accusing the school of protecting the alleged rapists and demanding accountability.
“We are known as the rape school,” Saya Taylor, a Cornell sophomore, said at the rally. “We can be known as leading a nationwide reform movement.
“Jane Doe deserved a campus that supported her,” Taylor said. “Jane Doe deserved an administration that delivered a fair and proper judicial process. Jane Doe deserved a police department that would actually follow up on her case. Instead, she was silenced.”
Jane Doe filed a civil lawsuit on Sept. 16 against the school, seven current and former Chi Phi fraternity members, the Tri-Delta Alpha Beta sorority where she lived, and a local bar where she said she was served alcohol on the night of the alleged incident.
Two of the seven fraternity members named in the suit are still enrolled at Cornell, according to school officials.
Here are other developments in a case that has rocked the Ivy League institution.
A no-confidence vote and a new investigation
Cornell students participate in a protest over the university’s handling of the “Jane Doe” case on Oct. 5.
(Spencer Platt via Getty Images)Late Monday, the Cornell University faculty introduced a resolution declaring it has no confidence in the administration’s ability to address the “ongoing crisis of sexual assault” on campus. According to NBC News, the proposal is expected to be considered by the Faculty Senate on Oct. 14.
“The goal is to really force systemic change,” Faculty Senator Paul Ortiz said in a statement to NBC. “Women need to feel safe.”
On Monday night, Cornell University President Michael Kotlikoff and Ryan Lombardi, the school’s vice president for student and campus life, met with the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly, which pressed them on their response to Jane Doe’s allegations.
“We’re all angry. I understand that anger,” Kotlikoff said, according to the Cornell Daily Sun. “People want easy answers to this.”
He added: “This passion, if appropriately channeled, can help us as a community address this issue.”
On Tuesday, Cornell’s board of trustees announced it has retained former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, a partner at law firm King & Spalding, to lead an independent review of how the university responds to sexual assault on campus.
“As part of that broader mandate, Yates and her team will conduct a detailed review of the University’s response to the allegations involving Jane Doe and members of the Chi Phi fraternity in October 2024, including whether Cornell followed its policies and procedures in responding to the matter,” the board of trustees said in a statement.
Phone calls between Jane Doe and accused frat brothers
The Chi Phi fraternity house at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., on Oct. 1.
(Matt Rourke/AP)Earlier this week, a phone call between Jane Doe and one of the accused fraternity members, recorded weeks after the alleged incident, was released by ABC News. During the call, Jane Doe said she was “10 shots deep” when she arrived at the Chi Phi fraternity house and was now struggling to remember what had caused “so much damage on my body and brain.”
“The only way for me to heal is to know what happened,” she said. “That’s why I’m trying to just piece it together, you know, like I’m just like confused.”
The fraternity member told her that she consented to having a threesome with him and another fraternity brother. He also insisted that Jane Doe had told him she had not been drinking when she showed up.
“You did tell me you were sober, by the way,” he said. “You said you hadn’t been anywhere.”
“That is not true. I never would have said that,” she replied.
Read more from Yahoo: A timeline of the Cornell University rape case
At one point during the Nov. 7, 2024, call, Jane Doe told him, “If I wanted to take this somewhere, what y’all did would be classified as gang rape.”
The fraternity member then suggested that their memory of what transpired may be inaccurate.
“I have racked my brain for this mystery,” he said. “You know, it’s possible that both of us, like, remember this, and it’s not true.”
Jane Doe pushed back: “No, because I remember looking up and being like, ‘That is too many people.'”
Fraternity members told police that sex was ‘consensual’
A student wears a Jane Doe name tag during a rally at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., on Oct. 5.
(Lauren Petracca/Reuters)ABC News obtained video of Cornell police questioning members of the Chi Phi fraternity not involved in the alleged assault in which they told officers that they had heard the sex was consensual.
“What people were saying was that there was like multiple consenting adults in this room,” one fraternity member told police.
Another told investigators that “the general rumor that was going around was that it was a … consensual thing.”
The officer appeared to question why the fraternity members were using the term “consensual.”
“Dude. I was a college kid,” the officer said. “In college, I wouldn’t have been like, ‘Oh, that was a sick consensual act last night.'”
Also see: How fake online identities became a tactic to protect ‘Jane Doe’
ABC also reported this week that a day after a campus-wide alert notified students of the reported rape at Chi Phi, Cornell’s police department received an anonymous tip from a caller who said that the fraternity’s leadership asked a potential witness to stay quiet because “the reputation of all involved and the frat would be ruined” if details were made public.
According to the report, one female student also told Cornell investigators that the fraternity “held a meeting essentially to get all of the men on the same page about what happened.”
Other calls and text messages obtained by the network suggested that some of the fraternity members attempted to contain the allegations in the weeks that followed.
“When was the last time you spoke to [Jane Doe]?” the fraternity’s president wrote in the messages to the member who invited Jane Doe to the house.
“Yesterday … what’s the plan of action?” he replied. “Should I call [Jane Doe]? I don’t think she would have reported this.”
Jane Doe, who was 20 at the time of the alleged 2024 rape, reported the incident to Cornell University police on Nov. 8, 2024.
All of the men identified in Jane Doe’s civil suit have denied any wrongdoing, according to the New York Times. None has been charged with a crime. And Chi Phi remains banned from campus.
Bar denies serving Jane Doe
Students participate in the march and protest at Cornell University on Oct. 5.
(Spencer Platt via Getty Images)In court papers filed on Monday, the owners of Moonies Bar and Nightclub denied that they “sold, furnished or assisted in procuring alcoholic beverages to any person under [the] legal drinking age” or “any visibly intoxicated person.”
They also said they “neither knew nor should have known any assault would occur,” and had no obligation to protect Jane Doe from “sudden criminal acts of third parties off premises.”
New York governor appoints James as special prosecutor
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said late last week that she had lost faith in Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten and appointed New York Attorney General Letitia James as the special prosecutor to oversee the criminal investigation.
“This young woman had already endured something that is utterly unspeakable,” the governor said. “And then at every turn, she was failed by people and institutions with an obligation to protect her.”
Jane Doe has received ‘multiple threats,’ lawyer says
Meanwhile, Jane Doe’s lawyer, Thomas Giuffra, said that his client has received “multiple threats” in recent days.
“There are people out there trying to track her down,” Giuffra said on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday. “They said we’re gonna shut you up. You’re gonna still get hurt by us. You’re gonna pull this lawsuit out or we’re gonna do something to hurt you even more.”
In an appearance on CNN on Tuesday night, Giuffra said his client had received a phone call threatening the lives of her and her family.
“I am absolutely appalled that this has gone so far,” he said.
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