A former Cornell University student who says she was gang-raped at a fraternity house has said she felt “unsupported and disbelieved” by the university’s president, Michael Kotlikoff. Writing under the name Jane Doe, she set out her complaint in a letter accusing him of asking why she had waited several weeks before reporting the incident.
The Ivy League institution in upstate New York said her account of the president’s reaction was “incorrect”. Doe addressed her letter to faculty members, who will hold a rare vote this month on Kotlikoff’s leadership. She filed a lawsuit last month alleging that several men raped her in October 2024 at a Chi Phi fraternity party. All seven former fraternity members she accused have denied wrongdoing, and none has been charged with a crime.
Doe’s letter describes the president’s alleged remarks
In a two-page letter dated 14 October, Doe told the faculty senate that after she reported the alleged rape, she heard about Kotlikoff’s reaction from a secondhand source. She said his initial response was along the lines of asking why she had waited so long to report it. Doe reported the alleged assault to campus police on 8 November, roughly three weeks after the party.
She also said Kotlikoff had held a conversation with the then-president of her sorority, and that other staff members were present. At least one of them, she wrote, appeared distressed by the question. Doe said the episode had weakened her faith in the administration’s ability to handle her experience with the understanding and fairness she had expected from the school she had once dreamed of attending.
Doe said she wrote the letter so that faculty could make an informed decision before their vote. The university confirmed it had received the document from Doe’s lawyer. Separately, the local prosecutor had declined to bring charges when the case was first raised, but the matter has since been reopened.
Cornell disputes the account of Kotlikoff’s question
In a statement, a Cornell spokesperson said the secondhand account of the question in the letter was incorrect, citing what it described as a documented firsthand account. The spokesperson said the question, asked at a January 2025 meeting, was aimed at bystanders who had not used Cornell’s anonymous tip line, despite ongoing social media activity about the incident in October 2024.
“He was not questioning Jane Doe’s reporting,” the spokesperson said. When the allegation first emerged, the university said it had opened an internal investigation and a civil rights inquiry.
Kotlikoff, who has led the Ithaca-based university for 26 years, faced questions from the faculty senate last Wednesday. According to recordings obtained by reporters, staff said they were “deeply disturbed” by his handling of the case and accused him of lacking an emotional response. Kotlikoff pointed to changes the university had introduced in response to Doe’s allegations, including a ban on fraternity parties. “We are all extraordinarily upset by the events at Cornell in October of 2024,” he said.
Faculty senate schedules no-confidence vote for 28 October
The faculty senate, a governing body of professors and other academic staff, has scheduled its no-confidence vote for 28 October. In recordings of the meeting, faculty members said sexual misconduct on campus was a systemic problem that required systemic attention.
Paul Ortiz, a labour history professor who sponsored the no-confidence resolution, said students had told faculty they feel unsafe walking to the library after dark. He accused Cornell of treating rape as more of a public relations problem than a serious crime.
