Matthew Ingalls. Jonathan Newell. Winston Lee. Gillio Lopes. Diego Sarabia. Scott Norris. Scott Kretzschmar.
These are the names of the seven men named as defendants in a civil complaint filed on Sept. 14 alleging they drugged and gang raped a Cornell student, identified as Jane Doe, in the Chi Phi house in October 2024.
A university's obligation to the physical safety of its students is not one commitment among several, to be weighed against reputation or litigation exposure. It is antecedent to everything else the institution does. Cornell exists to teach and to educate, and instruction presupposes a student capable of receiving it, which presupposes, in turn, a student who is not afraid to attend their lecture hall. Safety is not adjacent to the educational mission — safety is, in fact, its precondition.
Cornell has said as much, in the document that governs the student conduct, which announces that it is “intended to preserve a higher education community and residential campus where ‘any person’ in the community can pursue their education in a secure and nourishing environment.” The promise was invoked again on Feb. 21, 2025, when then-Interim President Michael Kotlikoff published Cornell’s guiding principles organized around opportunity, access, diversity, merit and the assurance that “Cornell follows the law.” The statement appeared just four months after the October 2024 assault.
So we ask the questions the University has left unanswered. If Cornell follows the law, then we should have access to a public deposition issued from the school, the Title IX investigation opened in January 2025 and how it concluded. Why were these men allowed to “pursue their education in a secure and nourishing environment” and she was not? Why was she not informed of the outcome of her own Title IX investigation? Who benefited from the 23 months of elapsed time when the public knew nothing?
Cornell wrote that the suspensions of the men were issued “to protect the immediate physical health and safety of all students.” The Faculty Senate, voting 80-16 in November 2025, held that interim suspensions should cease when the risk of harm ceases. For the men to be back on campus, either the danger passed at some identifiable moment, and thus this community is owed an account of what changed, or it did not and the suspensions were lifted anyway. Cornell has explained neither.
The lawsuit alleges the suspended students were offered the chance to mitigate conduct by submitting essays. A student accused of copying on a prelim receives a written notice with the evidence, three business days to demand a hearing and resolution of their case within two weeks, under the Accepting Responsibility Program written into the Code of Academic Integrity, which passed by a vote of 97-3. Cornell is capable of speed, of structure and most definitely of proportion — at least for the chemistry department.
Though when it comes to sexual assault, Cornell’s five-month-late response was a task force. During an interview with The Sun, the sexual assault task force co-lead and Dean of Students Marla Love said that “the charge was never for us to solve the problem.” In the interim, the University saw an increase in “nonconsensual sexual contact” to 15% of survey respondents from 11% in 2023, with a fifth of the incidents against undergraduate women occurring in fraternity houses or annexes. If the task force’s mission was not supposed to solve the problem of sexual assault, as Love has stated, then it been a resounding success.
Tackling sexual assault as an academic matter — complete with its charts and facts and figures — offers no respite to the victims who have undergone physical and mental abuse. Academic “solutions,” like the essays, allegedly offered to the defendants to mitigate their suspensions, is belittling to the severity of the crime. It offers no concrete, feasible solutions beyond the usual passivities of “communication” and “understanding” that assume we live in a world of saints and angels. Cornell administrators and researchers surely know this — they understand the futility of their reports and the minimal impact these studies and prevention classes will have on the campus culture that has continued for generations. It takes no statistician to see the selection bias in the fact that the people who attend sexual assault prevention meetings and listen to them are quite likely not the ones most likely to commit acts of sexual assault.
This is not a dark chapter in Cornell’s history, it’s a morbid pattern, only rectified with thorough criminal investigations in the hands of parties independent of the University — the Ithaca Police Department and the Tompkins County district attorney. As for Cornell, administrators have allowed the idea that enough ambiguity, enough he-said-she-said, enough familial connections, enough money will allow you to get off scot-free. We call on Cornell to publish the standard by which a suspension in a sexual assault case is lifted. We call on them to state whether an allegation of sexual assault is eligible for emergency suspension at all under the revised Article VIII. Finally, we expect that the University shares with the complainant the outcome of her own investigation.
In Cornell’s own words, in the very letter it published on Nov. 26, 2024 — “Only those who perpetrate sexual violence benefit from its concealment.”
We refuse for this victim to be reduced to just another story. Cornell has failed to protect its students. Cornell has failed to address the growing issue of sexual assault on campus with its pathetic task force. Cornell has failed the student allegedly raped by those seven men at Chi Phi in October 2024. Cornell has failed her. Cornell has failed us.
To Matthew Ingalls, Jonathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris and Scott Kretzschmar: We know who you are and we refuse to let you benefit from this University's concealment.
The Cornell Daily Sun’s Editorial Board is a collaborative team composed of Editor-in-Chief Sophia Dasser ’28, Associate Editor Sophia Romanov Imber ’28 and Opinion Editors Zara Cheek ’28 and Rayen Zhou ’29.
The Cornell Daily Sun’s Editorial Board is a collaborative team composed of Editor-in-Chief Sophia Dasser ’28, Associate Editor Sophia Romanov Imber ’28 and Opinion Editors Zara Cheek ’28 and Rayen Zhou '29. The Editorial Board’s opinions are informed by expertise, research and debate to represent The Sun’s long-standing values. The Sun’s editorials are independent of its news coverage, other columnists and advertisers.
