The only reason any of us know what happened at Cornell’s Chi Phi house in 2024 is that the woman at the center of it decided to sue. On September 16, Jane Doe filed a civil lawsuit against Cornell, the fraternity, and seven men she says assaulted her when she was 20 years old. Until that filing, the details of her case stayed out of public view for nearly two years while the men she accused went on with their lives.
The lawsuit claims some of those men were punished with essays. That’s right…they were given writing assignments. Cornell says its own investigation produced expulsions and suspensions, yet the student who reported the assault is the one who ended up leaving school. Tompkins County prosecutors have since reopened the case and plan to bring it before a grand jury, which happened only because Jane Doe forced the story into the open.
We must make an example of Cornell
Cornell failed Jane Doe twice, first with the inadequate sanctions it handed down to the perpetrators and again with the silence it maintained around her case. Colleges across the country have handled sexual violence the same way for decades without paying a price, and that record is exactly why Cornell needs to become the example. Bodily autonomy is the foundation of reproductive freedom, and every university that buries an assault case teaches its students that their safety ranks below the institution’s reputation.
Every university that buries an assault case teaches its students that their safety ranks below the institution’s reputation.
Our public pressure campaign through calls and posts has not moved the university, so Women in America is going after the one thing Cornell protects above everything else. We are asking Cornell’s largest donors to freeze or redirect their gifts until the university adopts measurable reforms for student safety and accountability.
Starting with Dave Duffield
The first donor we are contacting is Dave Duffield, the billionaire founder of PeopleSoft and Workday. In January, Dave pledged $371.5 million to Cornell, the largest single gift in the university’s history, and Cornell renamed its engineering college in his honor. His total giving to Cornell comes to roughly $550 million, which makes him one of the few people the university cannot afford to ignore.
Continue reading over at the Women in America Substack.
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