Students strolling through Cornell University’s ivy-covered campus this week might ordinarily have felt they had every reason to celebrate.
They had secured places at one of America’s most respected universities, with promising futures ahead. Under the golden autumn sun, the university’s brick buildings looked especially picturesque—a scene that makes Upstate New York in fall feel almost magical.
But beneath that postcard setting, an atmosphere of anxiety and anger has overshadowed campus life.
“It’s tense,” Olivia, a 20-year-old sophomore, said. “It’s a messy situation.”
Cornell is facing renewed scrutiny after authorities reopened a criminal investigation into allegations of a gang rape first reported nearly two years ago. According to a civil lawsuit filed last week, seven men are accused of sexually assaulting a female student at a fraternity house in October 2024 after allegedly encouraging her, while she was already intoxicated, to consume additional alcohol and drugs.
On Friday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed an executive order removing Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten from the case. His handling of the 2024 investigation has drawn significant criticism. New York Attorney General Letitia James has now been assigned to oversee the matter.
Olivia spoke from a bench in the university’s central plaza, outside the assembly hall where angry students confronted Cornell officials during a hastily organized town hall on Thursday. She said she was particularly upset that one of the seven men named in the allegations remains enrolled at the university.
“I think that he needs to get off campus,” she said. “I don’t want him anywhere near me, or my friends, or anyone for that matter. I think his disgusting behavior should not be allowed here at Cornell, or anywhere else, at any other university. And he should just not be walking free.”
Seven men have been accused of sexually assaulting a female student at the Chi Phi fraternity house
The student and the six fraternity brothers have not been charged with a crime. Those who have obtained attorneys have denied wrongdoing through their legal representatives.
Even so, the dispute over whether the accused student should remain at Cornell—and what should happen to the others—has unsettled the Ivy League campus.
The debate has raised sharply opposing questions. Is he a threat who should not be living among fellow students, or a young man who has been wrongly accused? And while the allegations are being investigated, should he not be regarded as innocent unless proven guilty?
Olivia, however, said she had reached her own conclusion.
“People who have been accused of sexual assault should just not be around other people,” she said.
“I know friends who have shared classes with him, and it’s just not OK. I can’t imagine being in that position and having to see his face.
“Especially if someone is a victim of sexual assault. I think it’s an extremely sensitive issue and should not be taken lightly.”
Whether officials treated the allegations with sufficient seriousness has become the focus of an intense debate among students and faculty.
At Cornell, where annual tuition for students from outside New York is $75,000, students said the case had become the dominant topic of conversation.
The allegations were discussed among students when they first emerged, but the civil lawsuit and the reporting that followed have brought the details sharply back into public view this week.
The known account begins on Saturday night, October 19, 2024. The young woman reportedly went to her sorority house for drinks before joining friends at a bar in downtown Ithaca, where her sorority was hosting a party.
Then accounts differ.
Students at the Ivy League university, where a year’s tuition for non-New Yorkers costs $75,000, said the incident was all anyone was talking about
The case made the rounds among students at the time, but it is only this week – thanks to the civil suit and subsequent reporting – that the allegations have crystallized
She claims in her complaint that despite being underage and having a stamp on her hand indicating her age, she was served drinks at the bar. She went from that bar, Moonie’s, a neon-sloshed modern dance floor, to the exposed-brick nightclub Lot 10 around the corner, according to the complaint.
Then, alone, she made her way to the Chi Phi fraternity house to connect with a man she was romantically interested in.
Inside the house, she claims in her complaint, she had intercourse with the man and then his friend. The group took ketamine and drank more alcohol. At one point, the man she liked, in graphic terms, invited his frat brothers to join in. Five more did, she claims in the complaint.
The woman said her ordeal lasted several hours. She stumbled out of the frat house back to her shared room at Alpha Beta Chapter sorority house later that morning, according to the complaint. Initially sheepish about the encounter, according to an internal ‘Title IX’ – sexual misconduct – investigation file obtained by the New York Times, she told her friends she had had a wild night, and reassured the two initial men that she ‘really liked being w u.’
But as time went by, and the night became the stuff of campus legend, the woman grew uneasy.
Her roommate, according to the New York Times, told investigators: ‘As the days went on, I think she kind of came to realize that it was something bad. And that she didn’t really enjoy her time there.’
On November 3, the paper said that according to the investigation file, she texted one of the initial two men: ‘let’s be clear that 90% of what happened that night was not consensual. i was given more key than i can remember and i know that i told u i felt uncomfortable and i didn’t know anyone in the room.’
On November 8 she went to the university’s police department.
But by November 25, the district attorney had concluded – based on the police report – that there was no case to pursue.
On November 25, 2024, the district attorney concluded – based on the police report – that there was no case to pursue
This week the district attorney announced that decision was being reviewed, in light of the civil suit and new reporting.
Cornell, in a lengthy statement, denied failing to protect students or investigate the claims, and said that they ‘took the reports very seriously’.
‘The university conducted an extensive investigation and adjudication over several months and imposed different sanctions based on the findings and circumstances involving each student,’ the university said, adding that some of the seven men were suspended or expelled – but they could not disclose which.
Chi Phi’s national office told Our News Outlet that the allegations were ‘deeply concerning’ and that anyone reporting sexual violence deserves to be treated with ‘compassion, dignity and respect.’
The fraternity said sexual violence was ‘fundamentally incompatible’ with its values and its ‘Building Better Men’ mission, adding that it could not address the specific allegations while litigation is pending.
Doug and Henry, walking past the now-shuttered Chi Phi fraternity house where the 2024 encounter allegedly took place, said they worried about the reputational damage to their university. Two police cars were parked outside, with wary officers looking on.
‘I think everyone’s pretty upset with the situation,’ said Doug, a freshman.
Henry agreed, adding: ‘Everybody is angry about it, because it’s such a horrible rep for the university and at the same time it’s a horrible rep for our student body and what we stand for. And obviously it’s a horrible thing. I think everybody is unified on that.’
He said his male and female friends all agreed the allegations, detailed in the student newspaper, were distressing.
‘There’s not really a gender line at all on that.’
Outside the now-empty timber frame building, a woman told Our News Outlet that she was offended at being asked for her views ‘outside a frat house where someone was raped.’
At the Tri Delta sorority house, which the complaint states Jane Doe was a member of, meanwhile, a woman who answered the door told Our News Outlet that none of their members wanted to comment on the case.
Others, however, thanked the reporters on campus for shedding light on the situation.
Questions over the fate of the current Cornell student named in the civil suit, as well as that of the six others, are roiling the Ivy League institution
Oliver, a senior, said the 2024 incident drove him to question the antics of his fellow students and ultimately quit his fraternity.
‘It was a big thing when it happened, and the university did not handle the fallout well,’ he told Our News Outlet, alleging that university authorities ‘harmed’ the accuser.
‘It was the talk of the town back then, and now it feels like everyone else is talking about it – even globally.’
Oliver said he felt, in light of the incident, that fraternities fostered ‘a culture that isn’t nice,’ adding: ‘This is not necessarily a one-time event.’
The nation’s first fraternity, founded 150 miles east of Ithaca in Schenectady, in 1825, was created to foster friendship and fun away from academia. Since then, fraternities and sororities have become a huge, and highly controversial, part of American student life.
Nine million Americans are alumni of Greek organizations, according to the National Interfraternity Council, while 750,000 undergraduates are currently members. The Atlantic reported that one in eight American students at four-year colleges lives in a Greek house, with the 1,500 groups nationwide worth a collective $3 billion.
The networks of power that fraternities tap into are undeniable: Professor Alan DeSantis of the University of Kentucky wrote in his 2007 book that 18 former US presidents were fraternity members, and 85 percent of Supreme Court justices since 1910.
But so are the risks.
Students are injured every year in drunken frat house accidents around the country, and several die.
Others find themselves swept up in devastating false accusations.
In 2006, a stripper hired by members of Duke University’s lacrosse team claimed that she had been gang raped by three of them. She confessed years later to having made the attack up, admitting in December 2024 she ‘made up a story that wasn’t true because I wanted validation from people and not from God.’
The three lacrosse players settled their court case against the university for undisclosed damages in 2007 and the district attorney who prosecuted the trio was convicted of criminal contempt and disbarred.
In 2014, Rolling Stone published a devastating expose of a seven-man gang rape inside a frat house at the University of Virginia, only to retract the story five months later, admitting the accuser’s claims were not verified.
The associate dean of the university won $3 million in damages for defamation and the fraternity to which the men belonged settled its defamation lawsuit outside of court for $1.65 million.
But far more accusations never even make the headlines.
While the world was focused on Cornell this week, the University of Wisconsin-Madison confirmed that two students had reported they were drugged and sexually assaulted at off-campus fraternity houses. The incidents remain under investigation.
Might the Cornell accusations – especially if a grand jury recommends pressing charges – change anything?
Doug and Henry, the two freshmen, said they didn’t feel a reckoning was needed.
‘I think there’s a lot of details with the situation,’ said Henry, searching for diplomacy. ‘As someone who’s experienced Greek life at Cornell, I haven’t seen anything like that at all, ever.’
He added: ‘It’s definitely bad, obviously. And whatever needs to be done needs to be done.’
Doug agreed, saying: ‘I haven’t seen any disrespect towards women from any of the fraternities. It was definitely a unique thing to see.’
While the university has issued multiple statements and confirmed it had investigated the matter, Olivia believes Cornell has not done enough and feels the impact on students is real, regardless of any possible criminal case.
‘People need to take accountability. And the school needs to take better precautions for its students,’ she said.
