Why it took a lawsuit to get a real investigation into Cornell 

Every institution I have sued over sexual abuse says some version of the same thing when the lawsuit lands: We take this extremely seriously.

Then I get the file. And too often, what I find looks nothing like the statement the public receives.

There is often a prior complaint, a documented warning, conduct someone had already flagged, and an investigation that checked every procedural box without asking the hard questions. The decisions often make more sense as protecting the institution than protecting the person who came forward.

That is why the case unfolding at Cornell University should make people uncomfortable.

In 2024, a Cornell student went to campus police about a night at the Chi Phi fraternity house involving seven of its members. The district attorney declined to bring charges. His reason: Her sworn written statement to campus police did not allege that she had been drugged or did not consent to the sexual activity that took place.

But he has also acknowledged that his office never received the transcript of her interview with campus police before making that decision, and that prosecutors did not independently investigate. The decision not to bring charges was based on the investigation conducted by Cornell Police and the record provided to his office.

So the decision about whether to prosecute an alleged gang rape depended on an investigation conducted by the university’s own police department. Ithaca police say the case was never reported to them.

I’m not saying anyone at Cornell set out to bury the incident. I am saying no institution should be the only one holding the file on its own crisis. And for nearly two years, that was where the matter stood.

Then the student sued. Within days, the district attorney reopened the criminal investigation and said he would take the case to a grand jury. Cornell agreed to an independent review after........

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