Faculty no-confidence vote on Cornell president opens Friday
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Thursday that state police will now investigate all future sexual offense complaints at Cornell University, after the fallout from a 2024 gang rape accusation at the school.
Hochul said New York State Police signed an agreement with Cornell University so that all sexual offense complaints, which had historically fallen under the jurisdiction of university police, will be immediately referred to state police instead. “When someone reports sexual assault,” Hochul said on Thursday, they deserve “to know their allegations will be taken seriously and thoroughly investigated by law enforcement trained to support survivors.” “Survivors should be able to trust the institutions responsible for protecting them,” the governor added.
The change follows the handling of a 2024 incident in which a student, identified only as Jane Doe, filed a lawsuit against Cornell after she was allegedly drugged and gang raped at a fraternity. The civil suit alleges she was drugged and raped by seven men at a fraternity house at the university in 2024 and claims Cornell failed to protect her or adequately punish the men, who have become known as the Cornell Seven. Cornell, after initially defending its disciplinary measures, acknowledged it fell short in its handling of the case.
Backlash against the Ivy League university has been intense since Jane Doe filed her lawsuit in mid-September. On Wednesday, Cornell’s Faculty Senate, a governing body composed of professors and other academic staff, met behind closed doors and decided to move forward with voting on a resolution of no-confidence against the administration and the university’s President Michael Kotlikoff. The vote will be open for faculty starting on Friday and will run until 6 November. The resolution is largely symbolic but could intensify pressure on changing the university’s leadership.
Earlier this month, Cornell announced a series of measures responding to the alleged assault, including adding sexual assault investigators to its police force. Hochul, who said she was “deeply disturbed” by how the investigation was handled, appointed New York’s Attorney General Letitia James earlier this month as special prosecutor to oversee a reopened investigation into whether criminal charges are warranted.