Prosecutor reopens investigation into Cornell fraternity rape allegations

0:00It's Consider This where every day we go deep on one big news story. Today, new allegations raise questions about sexual assault on college campuses. New York prosecutors are reopening the investigation into an alleged gang rape that took place at Cornell University in 2024. The alleged incident involved seven members of an on-campus fraternity and an alleged victim who's identified as Jane Doe. In a civil suit filed earlier this month, she says the fraternity members drugged her, then raped her for hours. We acknowledge that there are going to be things that she remembers that she didn't remember in November of 2024.

0:40There are things that she understands and comprehends that she didn't necessarily understand at that point. That's Matthew Van Houten, District Attorney for Tompkins County, New York, speaking to WSYR in Syracuse. His office reopened the investigation. That's the human side of this that we acknowledge and we want to meet with her and talk through because that's the only way we're going to understand it. Consider this. Prosecutors are taking a closer look at the case. What do we know about how we got here? And how are students on campus reacting?

1:18From NPR, I'm Juana Summers.

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2:40It's Consider This from NPR. A prosecutor in New York has reopened an investigation into the alleged drugging and gang rape of a female student at Cornell University in 2024. NPR's Brian Mann has been following the story and joins me now. Hi there. Hi, Wanda. Brian, if this allegedly happened back in 2024, why is it only being investigated now? Yeah, Matthew Van Houten is the prosecutor in Tompkins County in upstate New York where Cornell is located. And he put out a statement this morning saying his office has faced a wave of outrage for not pursuing criminal charges sooner. Van Houten says he did review the incident when it first roiled Cornell's campus community two years ago.

3:19He says at the time, the woman gave a detailed statement to Cornell Campus Police where she described much of the incident, and I'm going to quote here, as voluntary, conscious, and consensual. Van Houten says based on that information, he decided not to pursue the case, but now he's reviewing criminal charges that he says will be presented to a grand jury. I was just taking a look at this lawsuit, and it includes some really harrowing new information. What have we learned? Yeah, in her civil lawsuit filed this month, the woman identified as Jane Doe describes a brutal assault. She wasn't old enough to drink legally, but says she was pressured at a Chi-Fi fraternity party to use alcohol and drugs.

3:56She describes them being gang raped, often while she was incapacitated over a period of hours. The lawsuit filing includes a screen capture of Snapchat messages between some of the men where they appear to joke and invite others to take part. This lawsuit also accuses Cornell University, Juana, of failing to properly respond to the alleged violence. I should say we don't know exactly what actions Cornell took against these individuals. The university said some were suspended or expelled, but campus officials have declined to say what happened after that. In a statement today, Cornell University spokesperson Kyle Kimball said, and again I'm quoting here, Any suggestion that the university did not impose consequential punishments for those involved is false.

4:41I mean, that hasn't seemed to satisfy critics. I know this weekend I kept seeing this story over and over again on social media. What stands out to you? It's really gone viral. And New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who describes herself as a survival of sexual violence, was actually in Ithaca last night. Again, that's where Cornell is located. She was speaking to students. Here's what she said. The culture of rape, sexual assault and pedophilia is protected in elite institutions across the United States and including Cornell University in this instance. It has got to stop. The actor Florence Pugh also talked about this case in an Instagram post to her.

5:25Roughly 11 million followers calling the alleged violence against the student a horrific act. she called for action to reduce sexual violence. I will say, Juana, NPR has tried through the day to reach out to these men named in the lawsuit, and our emails and phone calls have not been returned. Before you go, I just want to talk big picture here for a second. How common is campus sexual violence? Yeah, a widely respected study released in 2020 found about one in four college women faced some kind of sexual misconduct or coercion. I spoke with experts today who say They think the data suggests rates of sexual violence on many campuses is actually rising.

6:03That is NPR's Brian Mann reporting in upstate New York. Thank you. Thank you. The civil lawsuit against seven current and former Cornell students, the university and others, was filed on September 14th by Jane Doe. A week later, long before the story picked up nationally, the editorial board at the university's paper published a piece. Its title is Cornell Won't, We Will. That piece takes the university to task for their handling of Jane Doe's case. The Cornell Daily Suns Editor-in-Chief, Sophia Dasser, is with us now. Welcome. Hello. Thank you for having me. Thanks for being here, Sophia. I just want to start by asking you, what are you hearing from other students?

6:39What has campus been like in the last week? I mean, obviously the reach has been absolutely extraordinary, and we're grateful for it. But I think to the editorial board, what has meant more is the solidarity that we've seen. people on this campus and beyond who have written to us, to me specifically, saying that they see themselves in this story is really our priority. What did you and the other members of your editorial board uncover about Cornell's response when you were looking into the story? We realized that, you know, this is not a dark chapter in Cornell's history. It reflects a culture that the university has not yet confronted.

7:13The fact that sexual misconduct is treated as an educational problem, assigning essays, workshops and lectures as a part of the task force was extremely concerning to us and the lack of transparency. It was both concerning to us and clearly to the Cornell community. The co-lead of the task force had said, and I quote, that the charge was never to solve the problem. So our question is, who's responsible for solving it? When you spoke with Dean of Students Marla Love, who was co-lead of that sexual assault task force that Cornell launched five months after this alleged assault. What did that interview teach you about the way that the university approaches combating sexual assault on your campus?

7:53Again, it really reflects the fact that they view sexual misconduct as an educational problem, one that can be solved through lectures and through workshops. And it's quite obvious to anyone that those who would carry out the sexual assault would most likely not be sitting in a voluntary sexual assault workshop. So we ask and we call on Cornell to not just be transparent about its process and the sexual assault outcomes, but also be proactive in keeping campus safe. Because you've mentioned a couple of times, I want to talk about these essays. That's something that really stood out to me, that the alleged perpetrators were offered the chance to write essays to mitigate their conduct.

8:29And now Cornell University says that any suggestion that they, quote, did not impose consequential punishments for those involved is false. But to your knowledge, how does that compare to other kinds of infractions? I mean, in this case, it was mentioned that they did not assign the essays as the sole punishment for the boys, but they did not deny the fact that the essays were assigned. I guess I struggle to understand what an essay can do to help resolve a sexual misconduct to this alleged degree. And that's hopefully the answer. Yeah. Sophia, I understand that the woman at the center of this case, Jane Doe, has been in touch with your staff.

9:11What have you heard from her? What has she shared? In an effort to protect her and her anonymity, we had our lead reporter do the majority of the communication with her. We are extremely grateful to her courage to allowing the son to share her story and for her speaking only to our paper. but at the end of the day we also understand that her courage and her ability to speak out is also really encouraging many other victims to come to the sun and speak out that she is not a siloed and isolated case that this is a part of a greater culture. I mean I know you want to protect Rihanna Nemdi but I do have to ask I think many of us are wondering do you have a sense of how she's doing given the harrowing nature of these allegations?

9:58I don't want to speak for the Jane Doe And I feel that if she is willing and open to speaking about her process, that she trusts the son again with that. You write in the piece that this is not a dark chapter in Cornell's history. It is a morbid pattern. What is the Daily Sun asking of Cornell University? Well, our call to action is to publish standards. Publish standards for lifting an interim suspension in a sexual assault case. What allowed the boys to come back on campus. published anonymized data of the sexual misconduct complaints every semester, outcomes, sanctions, lengths of interim suspensions.

10:37These can be anonymized and they're done by other universities in our Ivy League cohort. So they're not absurd requests. That was Sophia Dasser, Editor-in-Chief at the Cornell Daily Sun. Thank you for your reporting. Thank you. NPR reached out to Cornell University for comment. They pointed us to their online statement in which they expressed support for the Tompkins County District Attorney's decision to reexamine this case, and they defend the way they handled things in 2024. This episode was produced by Gurjeet Kaur, Mia Venkat, and Connor Donovan with audio engineering by Ted Meebane. Our director is Jonas Adams.

11:15It was edited by Sarah Handel, Gigi Duban, and Tenbead Ermias. Our interim executive producer is Courtney Dorning.

11:26It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Juana Summers. This is Ira Glass. On This American Life, we tell stories about when things change. Like for this guy, David, whose entire life took a sharp, unexpected, and very unpleasant turn. And it did take me a while to realize it's basically because the monkey pressed the button. That's right. Because the monkey pressed the button. surprising stories every week wherever you get your podcasts this week on npr's newsmakers tucker carlson has broken with president trump over the war with iran and says he warned the president to his face that the war would be a mistake and he looked at me and said yes you're right but in the end we all die anyway so it doesn't matter tucker carlson this week on npr's newsmakers watch or listen wherever you get your podcasts.