The Cornell case, explained
Vox · L · trust 65/100
A timeline of how a student went ignored at Cornell.
Gift Spencer Platt/Getty Images “In what world,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul asked on Friday , “would the police learn from a victim that she’d been literally gang raped while she was intoxicated by five men in a fraternity house and not elevate those allegations to the district attorney?”
Hochul was speaking about the case of a former Cornell student who said she was raped by several members of the university’s Chi Phi fraternity in 2024. At the time, the district attorney filed no criminal charges.
The case has rocked the nation and forced a renewed reckoning over how sexual assault is dealt with in higher education. While the district attorney has defended his handling of the case , many politicians and legal experts are now examining whether certain details of the alleged victim’s account were neglected, and prosecutors have reopened the case.
Amy Wang is a staff reporter at the Washington Post who’s been covering the story over the past week. She spoke with Today, Explained co-host Noel King about what allegedly happened on the night in question, what happened afterward, and what we still don’t know.
Since the two spoke, New York state Attorney General Letitia James has also been assigned to oversee the case and said it is now “an active criminal investigation.” As new information comes to light, further legal action could be taken.
Below is an excerpt of the conversation between King and Wang, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts , Pandora , and Spotify .
In October of 2024, a young woman went to a fraternity house near Cornell University’s campus. Who is this young woman, and why did she go to the frat house that night?
The young woman is only identified in documents as Jane Doe, so we don’t know her name. She was, at the time, 20 years old. She was a sophomore at Cornell. And around 11 pm on the night of October 19, 2024, this Jane Doe goes to a bar on campus, and then, after that, goes to the Chi Phi fraternity house to hang out with a friend.
She said that she was already pretty intoxicated at that point, and she’d had maybe 10 drinks in about three hours. Her friend at the fraternity house hands her a beer. After that is where she alleges that another member of the fraternity pressured her into taking drugs, specifically ketamine and marijuana, and drinking more alcohol. She alleges that two members of the fraternity assaulted her, and that one of them later sent a Snapchat message out to active Chi Phi members. The message is pretty graphic, but essentially invites them to join in, and several did.
In about three weeks, this young woman was going to go to the Cornell campus police and report what happened that night. But in the interim, what was going on? What was happening?
We now know, based on reporting by the New York Times and CBS News, this young woman was a member of a campus sorority, so she went to a member of her sorority and was trying to make sense of what happened. She was still processing it in real time. She wasn’t using, according to their reporting, the word “rape” or “assault.” And she was also seeing rumors circulating around campus about what had taken place at the fraternity house and was growing concerned about how they portrayed her.
She, in the interim, also received a text message from one of the seven men at the fraternity essentially apologizing for how things went down the other night. She is not yet accusing them of assault, but is chatting, even seeks to reassure him in that first message.
On October 22, she then makes an appointment at the campus health clinic because she had what she thought was a UTI and wanted to be tested because she told the doctor that she had gone through a traumatic experience.
According to the New York Times reporting , you could see her thinking about what happened kind of evolve over those few weeks. She at some point says that this is starting to ruin her life, and she’s sleeping and crying and she’s feeling ashamed. She’s just really grappling with what had taken place, trying to make sense of it. By November 3 is when, according to these investigative documents that were obtained by the Times, she kind of comes to this conclusion that what happened at the party at Chi Phi was assault.
She texts one of the seven fraternity members and says, “This was not consensual. I was given more ketamine than I can remember,” and that she was uncomfortable. A few days later, November 7th, 2024, according to these documents, she goes to the ER and asks for a rape kit. And the following day is when she goes to Cornell University Police.
When she goes to the police, how does she characterize what happened to the police? What does she tell them?
What she tells the police is that she believes she was assaulted, and she tells the police that it had started out as something that was consensual. And then at the end she says, “I can say with 100 percent confidence I was raped.” She tells police she was extremely uncomfortable and that she kept taking ketamine in part because she thought she might black out and pass out. She had thought of at least two of the men as her friends. After the events of that night, she is then confronted with rumors that were spreading across campus, sort of depicting her as loose and blaming her essentially.
What happens after Jane Doe talks to the police? What do they do?
When she talks to Cornell University Police, they summarize what she said in a six-page statement that she then signs. And that is the statement that is submitted to the Tompkins County district attorney.
And the district attorney would be the person who would bring charges or decide not to bring charges. What does he decide?
Yes, so the district attorney decides not to bring charges in 2024 based on, he has said, the sworn statement that she signs to…
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