Scope to cover broader campus sexual misconduct policies, committee says
Cornell University announced Tuesday that Sally Yates, a former acting U.S. attorney general and career federal prosecutor, will lead an independent internal review of how the university handled a former student’s rape allegations. Yates, a partner at the law firm King & Spalding, was selected by a newly formed Special Committee of Cornell’s Board of Trustees, the school said.
Yates previously served as the U.S. deputy attorney general under President Barack Obama and as acting U.S. attorney general. Anne Meinig Smalling, chair of the special committee, framed the appointment as a response to the Jane Doe matter and to broader questions about the university’s approach to campus sexual misconduct.
“Sally Yates brings extraordinary experience, independence and judgment to this work,” Smalling said in the university’s announcement. “The questions raised by the Jane Doe matter warrant a rigorous examination of Cornell’s response to that case, but our responsibility is broader. We have asked Ms. Yates and her team to examine Cornell’s overall approach to preventing and responding to sexual misconduct, identify where we are doing things well and where we can do better, and recommend changes that will help make our community safer.”
The review follows a civil lawsuit filed in mid-September by a former student identified in court records as Jane Doe, who alleges that seven men drugged and gang-raped her for several hours in October 2024 at the Chi Phi fraternity house on campus. No criminal charges have been filed against the men named in the suit, and the individuals named have denied all wrongdoing, according to NPR’s reporting. Cornell University is also a defendant in the case.
Cornell has maintained that Cornell University Police investigated the matter thoroughly and that the school conducted its own Title IX investigation, which resulted in suspensions and expulsions. The university’s president has previously called the allegations “deeply disturbing,” NPR reported.
The announcement lands in a campus environment already roiled by the case. Since the lawsuit was filed, students have protested the university’s response. Gov. Kathy Hochul appointed state Attorney General Letitia James to lead a separate criminal investigation into the matter after sharp criticism of how campus police and the local prosecutor, Matthew Van Houten, handled the original case. The episode has also renewed national conversations about consent and sexual assault on college campuses, NPR reported.
The scope of Yates’ review — covering both the Jane Doe complaint and the university’s broader policies on sexual harassment, sexual assault, and related misconduct — places the former acting attorney general at the center of two parallel accountability processes: the university’s internal examination and the state-level criminal inquiry led by James.