A sign is displayed as some of the Cornell University students taking part in a seven-hour sit-in protest representing the seven hours that Jane Doe alleges she was sexually assaulted in a case involving seven members of Cornell’s Chi Phi fraternity sit outside Toni Morrison Dining Hall, while other participants remain inside, in Ithaca, New York, U.S., on October 7, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Cornell students thronged a campus plaza to protest the university’s response to allegations of sexual assault at a fraternity house, and the school’s main administration building was splashed with graffiti and damaged overnight.

At a demonstration that overflowed the large space in front of the school’s student centre, students, faculty members and others wore purple ribbons and held signs with such messages as “support survivors, expel rapists” and “Justice 4 every Jane Doe” — the name by which the woman who reported the assault is known in court papers. Others watched from pathways, windows, and a nearby hill.

“Too often, we are met with silence, we are met with statements, we are met with procedures, but not enough support,” student Athena Holloway told the crowd. “How much does it take for our university to stand with survivors?”

Hispanic studies professor Julia Chang added to applause: “Rape should not be inevitable.”

Speakers faulted fraternities, the university trustees and Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff, saying he and his administration have prioritised protecting the university’s reputation over students’ safety.

“Kotlikoff, resign!” demonstrators chanted, among other slogans, as they marched to the damaged administration building to present a list of demands.

The Ivy League school has been trying to quell a firestorm — on campus and beyond — over its handling of the alleged 2024 gang rape. Early Monday (October 5, 2026), the university found signs of the anger on the very walls of its administrative headquarters.

Holes were knocked into one of the building’s glass doors, and the walls beside them were marked with red-painted messages condemning patriarchy and the Ivy League school’s handling of sexual assaults, news media photos showed. Later Monday, the graffiti was removed and the door was boarded up.

Cornell spokesperson Kyle Kimball said in a statement that the university was investigating and that “damaging property is not the answer” to Cornellians’ “frustration and strong emotions.” Campus police referred questions to his office, which declined to provide more detail on the incident.

The woman known as Jane Doe alleges that she was sexually assaulted by multiple Chi Phi fraternity members in October 2024 after being pressured into drinking and taking drugs. She was a Cornell student at the time.

The woman recently sued the university, seven former students, the fraternity and others. Her lawsuit said that she became fully incapacitated as fraternity members assaulted her, and that one man sent others a message inviting them to participate.

“I felt like bait. I felt like lions around me. It just was a totally debilitating place to be in,” she told Cornell investigators last year, according to records reviewed by The Associated Press.

Lawyers for two of the former students denied they participated in a sexual assault. Attempts by The Associated Press to reach the other men or their representatives have been unsuccessful. Court records show that some of the accused students, when interviewed by Cornell investigators, described the sexual activity as consensual.

Shortly before she went to Cornell police in November 2024, Jane Doe recorded a phone call with one of the men she says raped her, ABC News reported Monday (October 5, 2026), saying it had obtained the recording. The network played portions, containing only what it said was his voice, and recounted other parts of the conversation in writing.

According to ABC, the man told her that after dancing with her for five minutes or less, he suggested a three-person encounter. He maintained that she agreed to it, and that he then fetched the second Chi Phi member from the dance floor.

Her lawsuit says she was too intoxicated to give consent.

On the call, she tried to pinpoint who else later came into the room, ABC said. The man suggested both he and she might be misremembering something that’s “not true,” but she countered that she recalled looking up and seeing “too many people” there.

“What y’all did would be classified as gang rape,” she told him at one point, according to the network, which said she had provided the recording to the university.

Students are demanding transparency, accountability

The suit has drawn national attention to what Cornell, its police force and the local district attorney did after she told the campus police in November 2024 she “can say with 100% confidence I was raped.”

No criminal charges have been filed. The Chi Phi chapter at Cornell was shut down, and the Ivy League university has said it expelled some students and suspended others. In a statement last week, the administration bristled about the “false narrative that there were minimal consequences in this case.”

Students, however, have demanded more accountability and transparency, and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has said Jane Doe was “failed by people and institutions” including the Cornell police and local District Attorney Matthew Van Houten.

Ms. Hochul appointed the state attorney general last week to take over a criminal investigation that Van Houten had reopened days earlier, and the governor called for an independent review of Cornell’s handling of the matter.

After the week’s developments, Mr. Kotlikoff released an apologetic video Saturday, saying that Jane Doe’s account “raises heartbreaking and troubling issues about sexual assault, dehumanization and aspects of party culture, alcohol and drug use.”

Mr. Kotlikoff reaffirmed his support for an independent review of the university’s actions and vowed more transparency and a commitment to “finding the answers our community deserves.”

Published – October 06, 2026 04:44 am IST

Women, some citing their own experiences of sexual assault, are posting on social media that they are Jane Doe, in solidarity with the woman using the pseudonym in accusing fraternity members of raping her at Cornell University in 2024.

In ​a case that has drawn national attention, the woman is suing seven fraternity members and the Ivy League school in Ithaca, New York, among others.

And although ‌New York law allows “Jane Doe” anonymity for sexual assault lawsuits, the Cornell student has become distressed at attempts by some ​online skeptics of her account to discover her name and publish it, her lawyer said.

“I want us to support ⁠Jane Doe in coming to her own way of identifying herself in her own time,” said Twanna LaTrice Hill, a writer and actor in Denver who has declared #IamJaneDoe on social media in recent days. “And if she never does, that’s fine. But the flip side of that is that the people like me need to ‌speak up if we are able to.”

Efforts to identify accuser draws backlash

The woman, who was 20 at the time of the alleged 2024 gang rape, filed suit on September 16, prompting prosecutors to reopen a criminal investigation they had initially ‌closed without charges. New York Governor Kathy Hochul has appointed the State’s Attorney General as special prosecutor in the case and on Friday (October 2, 2026) ‌faulted ⁠police and prosecutors, saying they had not fully investigated the woman’s allegations.

The accused men have denied all wrongdoing, the ⁠New York Times reported. Cornell has defended its handling of the matter.

Since the woman filed her lawsuit, some commentators have sought to learn and publish the accuser’s identity online, efforts that her lawyer, Thomas Giuffra, called an attempt to shame her.

“She’s not doing well,” Mr. Giuffra told CNN. “She’s under siege on social media.”

He said some women have been incorrectly identified ​as his client. “That’s been really difficult,” he said. “And she’s gone through a ‌lot.”

Much of the online support for her has criticized independent journalist and commentator Michael Tracey, who has expressed sympathy for the accused men over what he says is the harassment they have since faced. Mr. Tracey has also questioned the accounts of victims of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Mr. Tracey, who did not respond to a Reuters request for an interview, describes his effort to identify the Cornell ‌student as journalistic diligence protected by constitutional free speech protections.

“Let’s see if anyone has the ‘balls’ to name this Jane Doe so we ​can all evaluate her veracity, and that of her lawyers, since her lawsuit didn’t hesitate to name & shame 7 of her peers as gang-rapists,” Mr. Tracey posted on social media on Monday (September 28, 2026), one of multiple messages on the case.

Early on ⁠Friday (October 2, 2026), he posted what he believed to be the accuser’s name, which Reuters was unable to verify, before quickly deleting it, saying his point had been made.

“But please do not harass her, her family, or anyone else associated with her,” he wrote after deleting the name. “I’m serious. I wish her ‌no harm. I feel bad for her in a way.”

‘You feel like you’re on an island’

A post by Amee Vanderpool, who publishes an online newsletter on Substack, was typical of a number of messages and videos shared by those outraged at Mr. Tracey’s efforts.

“To anyone who is looking to find out the identity of Jane Doe in the Cornell rape case, look no further, because it’s Amee Vanderpool,” she wrote. “I am Jane Doe.”

Ms. Hill, 62, the writer in Denver, posted on Facebook this week about speaking publicly in 1990 about being raped when she was a teen by a youth minister who had counseled her.

“I was in absolutely no way trying to get other survivors to come forward or to ‌go public if they did not feel ready,” she wrote. “But I had hoped that as more of us coming forward, the stigma would be reduced. Perhaps it has ​in some small way, but not nearly enough. So I stand before you today simply to say: #IamJaneDoe.”

Katy Jacobson, a 35-year-old San Diegan who works with children with disabilities, said the hashtag can help survivors of sexual assault feel less alone.

“Because ⁠oftentimes you feel like you’re on an island,” said Ms. Jacobson, who added she felt fortunate to find support on campus when she was raped during ⁠college by a former boyfriend.

Some 21% of women in the U.S. report being survivors of completed or attempted rape, according to the most recent figures from the U.S. CDC’s National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey.

At Cornell, 35% of undergraduate women reported experiencing ‌nonconsensual sexual contact involving force or incapacitation since arriving on campus, according to a university survey conducted in 2025 and published on its website. That was up from 20% in 2021.

Ms. Jacobson’s posts direct people to organisations such as RAINN, which operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline.

“Even ​today, if you looked at my story, it has resources,” Ms. Jacobson said. “I’m not posting about the men. I’m posting about Jane Doe.”

Published – October 04, 2026 01:03 am IST