The woman who accused seven Cornell University students of raping her at a fraternity house has weighed in on a looming faculty vote of no confidence in the school’s leadership, saying the university’s president questioned why she waited to report being assaulted — an alleged remark she said left her feeling “unsupported and disbelieved.”
The case of Jane Doe, as she is identified in court documents, has prompted student protests, renewed scrutiny of the university’s disciplinary system and a state investigation into the alleged assault in October 2024.
In a letter last week to faculty leaders and obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, Jane Doe gave a secondhand account of a conversation from November 2024, shortly after she reported the alleged assault. The president of her sorority told her that Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff had questioned Jane Doe's delay in reporting the alleged assault, which the sorority leader interpreted as casting doubt on her story.
“President Kotlikoff’s initial response was along the lines of, ‘Why did she wait so long to report it?’” Jane Doe wrote in the letter. She said the conversation made her less confident that the administration could handle what happened with the sensitivity and fairness she expected.
Cornell’s dean of faculty, however, offered a different account of the conversation. In an email sent Tuesday to faculty senators and verified by the AP, professor Chris Schaffer said another official who was present at the conversation recalled that Kotlikoff asked why bystanders, not Jane Doe herself, didn’t report the alleged assault sooner through the school’s anonymous tip line, especially since the allegations were already circulating on social media.
Schaffer said he delayed sharing Jane Doe’s letter with faculty senators until he could get another account of the conversation. He said he forwarded the letter to university lawyers, who passed it on to an independent team investigating Cornell’s response.
Schaffer said he's against the proposed no-confidence resolution, saying it identified no specific failures or fixes, but acknowledged faculty frustration. “The anger in our community is justified and I share it.”
Kotlikoff did not respond Tuesday to an email inquiry about Jane Doe’s letter. A statement from a university spokesperson also disputed her account of the conversation, saying Kotlikoff was asking about bystanders' actions rather than Jane Doe.
Her letter, transmitted through her attorney, comes as Cornell faculty consider a resolution declaring no confidence in the university administration’s ability to address what some faculty members have described as an “ongoing crisis” of sexual assault on campus.
Faculty members began debating the resolution at a meeting last Wednesday, where Kotlikoff faced pointed questions about the school's response to sexual assault allegations and its oversight of fraternities. The Faculty Senate is expected to resume debate on Oct. 28 before holding an electronic vote.
In her letter, Jane Doe said she wanted faculty members to have information that might be relevant to their deliberations. She emphasized that she was not trying to tell them how to vote.
“My 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,” she wrote.
Messages seeking comment were left for Jane Doe’s lawyers, Thomas Giuffra and W. Whitney Seals.
