Cornell Sex Assault Case Raises Questions About Title IX Accountability and New York’s Intoxicated Consent Law
Time · LC · trust 55/100
Two years after a woman alleged a gang rape at Cornell University, renewed attention to the case and the limited consequences faced by the alleged perpetrators has raised questions about what higher education owes students who experience sexual assault on campus as well as how consent and intoxication are understood under New York law.
A woman identified as Jane Doe filed a civil lawsuit on Sept. 16, alleging that she was sexually assaulted, gang-raped, and pressured to take drugs and drink alcohol by seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity on the night of Oct. 19, 2024. The lawsuit is filed against the fraternity, Doe’s sorority chapter, and Cornell University; it names Matthew Ingalls, Johnathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris, and Scott Kretzschmar as defendants. Prosecutors said this week they were reopening a criminal investigation into the case after declining to press charges originally.
Separate attorneys for Kretzschmar and Lopes denied the allegations in statements to ABC , while Norris, via an attorney, denied engaging in sexual activity or drug use but acknowledged that he sent a message included in the complaint.
When sexual assault allegations of this kind occur on campus, they can be addressed in three distinct ways: through school disciplinary proceedings, criminal proceedings, and civil lawsuits.
Doe’s civil lawsuit alleges that Cornell failed to protect her. Her attorney has separately criticized authorities’ handling of the criminal investigation, although observers say what’s known as the “voluntary intoxication loophole” in state law could limit what prosecutors are able to charge.
Here’s what to know about how the case was handled—by Cornell and the criminal justice system—before, and what could happen next.
Doe reported the alleged assault to campus police in November 2024. According to her complaint, Cornell began its Title IX investigation on Jan. 14, 2025.
Title IX is a law dating back to 1972 that is meant to, among other things, ensure that a college investigates when there is sexual assault on campus. Central to this premise is that Title IX is meant to ensure that sexual violence does not impede a student’s access to education.
Doe’s attorney has said that Cornell expelled two of the seven accused students. Cornell has confirmed that its disciplinary process resulted in expulsions and suspensions, but has not disclosed individual outcomes. The lawsuit alleges negligence, breach of contract, and violations of New York law.
Cornell responded in a statement last week, saying that it could not confirm the individual disciplinary outcomes due to student privacy laws. However, the university clarified on Monday that “none of the individuals charged were offered the opportunity to write essays as a sole consequence of their involvement.”
“We take sexual violence extremely seriously,” the Sept. 21 statement said. “The Presidential Task Force on Campus Sexual Assault was launched shortly after this incident and issued a REPORT in March 2026.”
In a statement Monday, Kyle Kimball, Cornell’s vice president for university relations, said Chi Phi’s Cornell chapter closed in 2024 and the fraternity remains barred from campus.
But women’s rights advocates believe that the school might not have fulfilled its legal obligations in investigating the incident and taking appropriate actions toward those involved.
Title IX is a federal civil rights law meant to prohibit sex-based discrimination in any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.
Since Title IX was introduced, courts have found that the law requires institutions to ensure that sexual violence does not impede a student’s access to education.
“The reason why Title IX addresses sexual harassment, including sexual assault, is because of the very real impact that has on students’ ability to access education,” Shiwali Patel, a Title IX expert with the National Women’s Law Center, tells TIME.
According to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), students who experience sexual assault are more likely to earn lower GPAs in school and are more likely to drop out of school altogether.
Patel points to Doe’s attorney’s account of her efforts to leave Cornell after the alleged assault. In a Sept. 28 interview with CNN, Thomas Giuffra—Jane Doe’s lawyer—said Cornell refused her family’s tuition-refund request, leaving her to spend another semester on campus.
“She was trying to leave the institution; she didn’t want to be there,” Patel says.
Cornell told People that it works with students seeking to take leave or withdraw and “regularly refunds payments if students are no longer enrolled.”
Giuffra also told CNN that Doe is no longer in college as of 2026.
Universities also have obligations to offer support regardless of a formal complaint or a finding of culpability. These can include counseling, academic adjustments, and housing or schedule changes. Patel says it remains unclear whether Cornell fully complied with its Title IX obligations because the supportive measures it provided Doe are not publicly known.
Regardless, the situation raises questions about what more schools can do for students, Patel says, providing some examples of the types of questions that a university might ask in the aftermath of this kind of incident: “Does she need extensions on exams? Does she need some time off, some leave? Does she need a housing shift if the fraternity house and her sorority house are close together? Does she need counseling? Did they provide a stay away order? What kind of support were they giving her to make sure she wouldn’t have to be retriggered and traumatized by running into them?”
Title IX also requires schools to investigate allegations through a reliable, impartial process—independently of criminal court systems, and using a lower burden of proof to determine if a student violated campus policy.
Cornell University publicly disclosed…
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