A gang rape allegation at Cornell University is renewing questions about the oversight of fraternities at the Ivy League institution, where repeated misconduct cases have prompted a series of efforts to reshape Greek life.
Authorities reopened the investigation Monday as public anger grew over a lawsuit filed Sept. 16 against Chi Phi, Cornell and seven students the plaintiff says assaulted her. The woman reported to police in November 2024 that she had been assaulted at the fraternity house the previous month. Prosecutors initially declined to bring charges.
The Associated Press typically does not identify people who report sexual assault. The woman is identified by a pseudonym in her lawsuit.
Cornell has barred the Chi Phi chapter from campus. The fraternity’s national organization said Wednesday that the chapter voted unanimously to remove the accused students from its membership rolls within days of the police report. Cornell has also said its own inquiry resulted in disciplinary action against some students, including expulsions.
Elizabeth Allan, a University of Maine higher education professor and director of its Hazing Prevention Research Lab, called the allegations horrifying but familiar across college campuses. Repeatedly unsuccessful reforms, she said, demonstrate “how entrenched some of the behaviors are and that we need to take an approach that’s transformative.”
Cornell, located in Ithaca, New York, has introduced multiple changes over the years in response to hazing deaths, lawsuits and arrests involving its Greek system.
After freshman Antonio Tsialas was found dead at the bottom of a gorge, Cornell in 2019 required Greek organizations to hire independent monitors for events and undergo random security inspections, among other measures. A lawsuit filed by Tsialas’ parents alleged that he and other fraternity pledges were hazed and forced to consume dangerous quantities of alcohol.
Cornell has had fraternities — and problems linked to them — since the university was founded in 1865, said Adam McCready, an associate professor at the University of Connecticut who researches fraternities and sororities. One of the earliest confirmed hazing deaths occurred at Cornell in the 1870s, he said.
Over the decades, fraternities established what McCready called “palatial mansions that dictate the social environment on campus.”
Cornell fraternities have faced a long history of hazing and abuse allegations
In 1997, a Cornell student sued after alleging he endured weeks of paddling and beatings. A year later, six students were arrested after a fraternity pledge was allegedly removed from his dorm, blindfolded and restrained with rope and duct tape.
In 2012, a fraternity was found guilty of hazing in connection with the alcohol-poisoning death of a Cornell student. The university responded by moving to eliminate dangerous pledging practices.
At that time, more than one-fourth of Cornell’s students belonged to fraternities or sororities. Those students later become alumni and donors, McCready said, creating potential resistance to sweeping changes. “It can be a challenge to making change if there’s pressure not to do so,” he said.
In 2018, Cornell placed a fraternity chapter on probation over a contest members called the “Pig Roast,” a reference to the weight of women with whom they had sexual relationships.
The university responded with additional restrictions, including a move to prohibit hard liquor in chapter houses and require live-in advisers.
Still, in 2022, reports of a sexual assault and students allegedly being drugged at fraternity-affiliated off-campus housing led Cornell to suspend fraternity parties temporarily. The university said fraternity leaders should use the pause to “implement stronger health and safety plans.”
The gang rape allegation emerged two years later.
Victim advocates say Cornell’s response must go further
Cornell has pledged to adopt recommendations from a task force on campus sexual assault that began its work last year. The university has also cited the suspensions and expulsions imposed in connection with the current case.
For advocates who support survivors of sex crimes, however, those measures do not go far enough.
The people the woman says gang raped her were allowed to write essays to Cornell “to mitigate their conduct,” the woman’s lawsuit said. That’s unacceptable, said Maha Ibrahim, a director at Equal Rights Advocates, a nonprofit that represents survivors.
“There’s no schema where that’s an appropriate response to a gang rape,” Ibrahim said.
Allan said the case highlights a need to better understand what contributes to this kind of violence and misconduct, not just in groups, but communities, institutions and society.
“The lack of understanding around consent issues are broad-reaching and we have to be taking a public health approach to change behavior, change attitudes” in more sustainable ways, Allan said.
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Leah Willingham in Boston contributed to this report.
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