{"id":889208,"date":"2026-10-20T20:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T20:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/889208\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T20:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T20:08:10","slug":"jane-doe-says-cornell-president-appeared-to-question-her-allegations-in-letter-to-faculty-senate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/889208\/","title":{"rendered":"Jane Doe says Cornell president appeared to question her allegations in letter to faculty senate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jane Doe, the woman who accused several Cornell University fraternity members of sexually assaulting her in 2024, sent a letter to the school\u2019s faculty senate sharing a second-hand account of President Michael Kotlikoff\u2019s response to her allegations ahead of a potential vote of no confidence in his administration. <\/p>\n

In a Wednesday letter obtained by NBC News, Doe described a meeting between Kotlikoff and the then-president of her sorority, Tri Delta, months after she reported the alleged assault to the university. Doe wrote that the sorority president subsequently told her that Kotlikoff had allegedly questioned why she waited to report the incident.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the conversation she shared with me, with concern, that President Kotlikoff\u2019s initial response was along the lines of, \u2018Why did she wait so long to report it?\u2019\u201d Doe said in the letter. \u201cShe interpreted his question as an expression of doubt in the veracity of my story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cornell disputed that characterization Tuesday, saying in a statement that Kotlikoff\u2019s question during a January 2025 meeting was focused on bystanders who had not reported the allegations, rather than Doe herself.<\/p>\n

\"CornellThe shuttered Chi Phi fraternity in Ithaca, N.Y., Oct. 2, 2026. The university is facing renewed scrutiny following a civil lawsuit filed by a former student alleging sexual assault by members of the Chi Phi fraternity in 2024. Heather Ainsworth \/ NBC News<\/p>\n

The letter comes amid mounting scrutiny of Cornell\u2019s handling of Doe\u2019s allegations and growing debate among school faculty members over whether to hold a no-confidence vote in the university\u2019s administration. Earlier this month, Cornell hired former acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates<\/a> to lead an independent review, which will examine the school\u2019s response to Doe\u2019s allegations and broader policies governing sexual misconduct.<\/p>\n

In a civil lawsuit filed last month, Doe accused seven members of the now-dismantled Chi Phi fraternity of plying her with drugs and sexually assaulting her<\/a> at a party in October 2024 and into the early hours of the next morning. <\/p>\n

Orazio Petito, who was named as the former president of the fraternity, was dropped from the lawsuit after his lawyer said he was \u201cmistakenly\u201d identified as the Chi Phi chapter president at the time of the alleged 2024 assault, according to court documents. Petito was not accused of assault in the lawsuit. <\/p>\n

Attorneys for several of the men have denied wrongdoing or disputed her account. Doe\u2019s lawyer did not immediately respond to NBC News\u2019 request for comment.<\/p>\n

Cornell subsequently investigated the allegations through its Title IX disciplinary process, expelling two students and imposing suspensions or lesser sanctions on others. The university also launched a Presidential Task Force on Campus Sexual Assault in early 2025 and has said in a statement Tuesday that it is implementing recommendations to improve its response to sexual misconduct.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe second-hand account of the question asked by President Kotlikoff in a January 2025 meeting in the letter is incorrect, based on a documented first-hand account,\u201d the statement added. \u201cThe question \u2018why did it take so long for the assault to be reported\u2019 was directed at bystanders who did not use Cornell\u2019s anonymous tip line, despite ongoing social media activity about the incident in October 2024. He was not questioning Jane Doe\u2019s reporting.\u201d <\/p>\n

In her letter, Doe wrote that the sorority president told her that at least one other faculty member who attended the meeting \u201cappeared distressed\u201d after hearing Kotlikoff\u2019s question. Doe said that the faculty member thought \u201cthe President\u2019s response was inappropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt unsupported and disbelieved by President Kotlikoff,\u201d Doe wrote in the letter. \u201cIt diminished my confidence in the administration\u2019s ability to approach my experience with the understanding, sensitivity, and fairness I had hoped for and expected from what had been my dream school.\u201d <\/p>\n

Doe added that she is now sharing this account because she does not know how many people know about the meeting or the president\u2019s response. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy intention is not to prescribe how the Senate should interpret this account, but rather to provide information that its members may wish to consider or investigate further,\u201d she wrote. \u201cI would not want to withhold something potentially pertinent, only for Senate members to later discover that information relevant to their deliberations had not been made available to them.\u201d <\/p>\n

The letter has prompted questions from at least one faculty member about how it was handled by Cornell\u2019s dean of faculty, Chris Schaffer. A professor on the faculty senate, who requested anonymity to speak freely about the situation, told NBC News that Schaffer told members Tuesday that he had received Doe\u2019s letter last week, the same day the senate met to discuss whether to hold a vote of no-confidence<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he received it on the 14th, he should have said so,\u201d the professor said.<\/p>\n

Cornell said Schaffer received the letter as \u201clegal correspondence claiming to be from a law firm representing Jane Doe\u201d and that he \u201csubsequently turned it over to the General Counsel to verify and to share with the Independent Review.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShortly before the start of the Senate meeting on October 14, I received a communication from a lawyer representing Jane Doe, which relayed a second-hand account of President Kotlikoff asking about the timing of reports about the Jane Doe assault in 2024,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI later received a contemporaneous account of the meeting from a university official who was present that indicated President Kotlikoff asked bystanders \u2018why did it take so long for the assault to be reported\u2019 through Cornell\u2019s anonymous tip line, given the level of social media discussion of the events. The question was not about Jane Doe or her decision to report.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schaffer added that his office \u201cdoes not have the investigatory capacity to properly follow up on private communications of this kind, nor is this the role of the office.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the interests of transparency, I am writing now to inform the Senate that I received this communication, that I passed it on to the Office of the General Counsel, and that they have sent it to the investigatory team led by Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates,\u201d he added. \u201cAny individual who has information they believe is relevant to the deliberation of the Cornell Senate may make such information public or communicate it directly.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jane Doe, the woman who accused several Cornell University fraternity members of sexually assaulting her in 2024, sent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":889209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-889208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=889208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/889209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=889208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=889208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=889208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}