Cornell president disputes account of question about assault report

A former Cornell University student who accused fraternity members of sexually assaulting her says she felt “unsupported and disbelieved” after hearing a secondhand account of a question the university’s president asked about the case. Cornell disputes her account, saying President Michael Kotlikoff was asking why bystanders had not reported the alleged assault, not why the student had waited to do so.

The student, identified as Jane Doe in court documents, described the exchange in an Oct. 14 letter to Cornell’s Faculty Senate as it considers a vote of no confidence in the administration. The Senate has scheduled a meeting for Oct. 28 to debate the resolution, followed by electronic voting, according to The Guardian.

Doe wrote that the then-president of her sorority, Tri Delta, told her about a January 2025 meeting with Kotlikoff. According to Doe, the sorority leader said his initial response was along the lines of, “Why did she wait so long to report it?” Doe wrote that the sorority leader interpreted the question as doubt about her account.

“When the then-Tri Delta President relayed this conversation to me, I felt unsupported and disbelieved by President Kotlikoff,” Doe wrote. She said it diminished her confidence that the administration would approach her experience with the “understanding, sensitivity, and fairness” she expected from what she called her dream school.

Cornell said a documented firsthand account of the meeting contradicts that interpretation. Kotlikoff’s question — “why did it take so long for the assault to be reported” — referred to bystanders who had not used Cornell’s anonymous tip line despite social media discussion of the incident in October 2024, the university said. “He was not questioning Jane Doe’s reporting.”

Doe said she shared the account because she did not know whether senators were aware of the meeting. “I would not want to withhold something potentially pertinent,” she wrote. NBC News reported that Doe also said the sorority leader told her a faculty member at the meeting appeared distressed by Kotlikoff’s question and considered it inappropriate.

In a civil lawsuit filed in September, Doe accused seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity of drugging and sexually assaulting her at a party in October 2024. Attorneys for several of the men have denied wrongdoing or disputed her account. The Guardian reported that none has been criminally charged. NBC News reported that one named defendant, former fraternity president Orazio Petito, was subsequently dropped from the lawsuit after his lawyer said he had been mistakenly identified as the chapter president at the time.

Cornell’s Title IX investigation resulted in two expulsions and suspensions or lesser sanctions for other students. The university has hired former acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates to lead an independent review of its response to Doe’s allegations and its broader sexual misconduct policies.

NBC News reported that Cornell faculty dean Chris Schaffer received a communication from Doe’s lawyer shortly before an Oct. 14 Senate meeting and later sent it to university lawyers and the review team. Schaffer told senators he subsequently received an account from a university official who attended the January meeting that supported Cornell’s explanation of Kotlikoff’s question.