Cornell students hold sit-in over school’s response to alleged gang rape

Students at Cornell University are staging a seven-hour sit-in protest over concerns that campus leadership mishandled an investigation into an alleged gang rape in 2024.As of around 3 p.m. Wednesday, roughly 80 students gathered inside a campus dining hall for the “Zero Day” protest, vowing not to spend any money at the institution, and bearing posters demanding “Justice for Jane Doe,” the anonymous woman who has accused seven Chi Phi fraternity members of raping her in October 2024.“The sit-in will be a space for students to share their support for survivors of sexual violence in myriad ways, including the share of resources and teach-ins,” student groups who helped organize the protest said on Instagram. Black Students United, Cornell NAACP, Mecha de Cornell, Planned Parenthood Generation Action at Cornell, Students for a Democratic Cornell, and a student-run chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union are among those who helped organize the sit-in.“Jane Doe” filed a lawsuit against the school, Chi Phi, and others in September over a gang rape she said she suffered while a student at the hands of multiple fraternity members. In the lawsuit, Doe also said she was forcibly given drugs.The allegations have stoked controversy due to changes in Doe’s testimony about the incident since the night the gang rape allegedly took place. Doe’s new lawsuit said she was never in the condition to consent to any sexual encounters on Oct. 19, 2024, alleging she was severely inebriated since the start of the night.That differs from a statement signed by Doe that Cornell campus police gave to prosecutors at the time of the incident. Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten said in that statement, which summarized a lengthy interview Doe had with Cornell police and investigators, the woman admitted “to taking drugs and alcohol voluntarily and with knowledge … does not allege that she was forced to engage in any acts [and] … does not say that she was physically helpless or unconscious or incapacitated at any point during the time at the fraternity house.”CORNELL FRATERNITY BROTHER DETAILED MEMORY OF NIGHT OF ALLEGED RAPE IN LEAKED PHONE CALLThe case has become further mired in controversy because while the statement Doe signed off on and was provided to prosecutors does not make claims of rape, the original lengthy interview she gave does contain those accusations. In 2024, Doe said she initially consented to a threesome with a friend and his fraternity brother, conceding she took ketamine and was somewhat drunk, according to transcripts of that interview. It was further on into the night, when multiple other fraternity members came into the room, that she said the gang rape occurred, she said in the original interview.The latest sit-in protest over the saga comes after Cornell faculty introduced a resolution of no confidence on Monday, designed to target school officials they believe failed to sufficiently punish fraternity members accused of gang rape. The resolution followed the move of thousands of students to protest leadership’s handling of the case in demonstrations earlier Monday.