Cornell rape allegations: Woman faces threats as protests engulf campus – where the case now stands

The woman at the center of the Cornell University sexual assault case is receiving threats meant to push her into dropping her lawsuit, her attorney says, while thousands of students and faculty took to the Ithaca campus on Monday to demand accountability from university leaders. Nearly two years after the alleged assault, the case is now in the hands of New York's attorney general and has become a national flashpoint over how colleges and prosecutors respond to sexual violence.

Thomas Giuffra, the lawyer representing the former student identified in court papers as Jane Doe, said on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday that his client has been threatened repeatedly. He told CNN that people trying to uncover her identity have also gone after at least three other women who were wrongly identified as her, and that he himself received a threat that morning.

Giuffra did not say during the interview who was behind the messages or whether they had been reported to police. He later shared with NBC News a screenshot of what he said was one such message: a direct message on Instagram that used degrading sexual insults against Doe and suggested the world would not miss her if she were dead.

Giuffra also told CNN that his client is struggling as people online work to expose who she is.

Doe filed a civil lawsuit in September against Cornell, the Chi Phi fraternity, seven of its members and several other parties. She alleges she was sexually assaulted over several hours on the night of October 19 into October 20, 2024, at the Chi Phi house while under the influence of ketamine, alcohol and marijuana. Her complaint states she had already been drinking heavily before she arrived. She later left Cornell.

The suit claims the university failed to protect her and did not adequately discipline the students involved.

According to documents described by The New York Times, Doe's understanding of what had happened shifted over the following weeks. When she got home, she told her roommates she had taken ketamine and had sex with several men, but one roommate told investigators she did not describe it as rape and seemed to be in shock. In the days that followed, she exchanged messages with at least two of the men she would later accuse. One apologised for how the night had gone; she replied, according to the Times, that nothing sexual that happened was illegal.

That changed after she saw an online forum post describing a sophomore being drugged and gang-raped at Chi Phi. She later told university investigators it was the first time she encountered a version of events in which she was a victim rather than someone to be shamed. By November 3, she texted one of the men that most of what happened had not been consensual. Days later she went to an emergency room to request a rape kit, then reported the incident to Cornell police.

According to a partially redacted Cornell disciplinary panel decision obtained by CNN, Doe told investigators she felt like prey surrounded by predators that night, and described ketamine as leaving a person outwardly functional but mentally absent.

Doe also began recording phone calls with fraternity members after the alleged assault. Giuffra told CNN she did so to keep a record while she tried to piece together what had happened, and that the recordings include calls with men allegedly involved. ABC News reported that in one call, Doe told a fraternity member that what the group had done could be classified as gang rape.

Giuffra told CNN that his client's path from denial to shame to recognizing she had been assaulted was a typical response to trauma. A policy expert from the anti-sexual violence organization RAINN told CNN that trauma can disrupt how the brain records events, leaving gaps in memory.

All of the men named in the lawsuit deny wrongdoing. According to the Times, four acknowledged sexual contact with Doe but said it was consensual, while the others said they had none. Most said they did not believe she appeared intoxicated, and one claimed he was himself a victim because he was too impaired to consent. The Times reported that the men's accounts conflicted with one another and with Doe's statements to police.

The disciplinary decision reviewed by CNN references a Snapchat group chat for active Chi Phi members in which a crude sexual message about Doe was posted. One man told the panel he went to the room after seeing it to check that everything was all right. Another, whose name was redacted, expressed regret to the panel for not stopping what happened if it had been nonconsensual.

Cornell has said its months-long internal investigation led to expulsions and suspensions, and the Chi Phi chapter was shut down and barred from campus. The university's Title IX process included more than 50 interviews, according to a heavily redacted 99-page summary of the panel's findings.

According to Doe's lawyers, only two fraternity members were expelled. The Times reported that a third, who had already graduated, was banned from campus; two others received suspensions and disciplinary probation; and two more were ordered to avoid contact with Doe and complete coursework on topics including bystander intervention, along with written reflection assignments. The lawsuit characterises this as allowing the men to soften consequences by writing essays, a description the university disputes.

Much of the scrutiny now focuses on what happened between Cornell police and the Tompkins County District Attorney's Office in 2024.

Campus police conducted a lengthy interview with Doe that produced a transcript of roughly 120 pages. According to the Times, that was condensed into a six-page statement, which Doe corrected by hand and signed before it was sent to prosecutors. ABC News reported that the initial police record said Doe had reported being raped by eight to 10 men, wording that did not make it into the six-page version. CNN affiliate WCBS reported that the longer transcript includes Doe saying she was completely certain she had been raped.

District Attorney Matthew Van Houten has said the only materials his office received were the six-page statement and the Snapchat messages, and that multiple prosecutors concluded the account, as written, did not describe a crime. Records obtained by the Times show his office declined to review additional evidence gathered by campus police, including other interviews, because it had already decided not to pursue charges. The Title IX findings were also never seen by prosecutors.

Cornell initially told CNN it had shared all investigative information with the DA's office, then revised its statement to say police had shared Doe's sworn statement and the Snapchat screenshot.

New documents also added another layer. Cornell police drafted letters to Verizon and T-Mobile dated November 15, 2024, asking the carriers to preserve data tied to certain accounts in connection with a sexual assault investigation and saying a signed warrant would follow. CNN reported it is unclear whether the letters were sent, whether police followed up with subpoenas, or whether the DA knew about the request. The drafts suggest campus investigators were actively pursuing the case even as prosecutors declined to go further.

Giuffra has also said that when Doe visited Cornell Health days after the incident, a provider did not offer an injury exam or suggest a rape kit.

Van Houten reopened the case on September 28 after the lawsuit was filed, later saying he had obtained the full 120-page transcript and would present the matter to a grand jury. He has also said the allegations in the lawsuit differ dramatically from Doe's 2024 statement, a claim her attorney rejects.

Days later, Governor Kathy Hochul appointed Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor. In a letter obtained by CNN, Hochul called the handling of the case horrifying. Van Houten said he supported the appointment, adding that his office had not been given the full picture by the university. Giuffra, in turn, told CNN he believes the DA was trying to protect Cornell, which Van Houten flatly denied.

James now faces questions of her own. Four days before her appointment, she posted on social media that what Doe had endured was horrific and that survivors were not alone. Andrew Miltenberg, a lawyer for one of the accused men, called on her to recuse herself, arguing her words could be read as presuming the allegations true. James said Monday her investigation would be guided only by facts, evidence and the law.

On Monday, a "Justice for Survivors" rally drew a massive crowd to campus, with chants calling for President Michael Kotlikoff to resign. Hours earlier, according to The Cornell Daily Sun, anonymous activists smashed a glass door at Day Hall, the main administration building, and spray-painted slogans accusing the university of protecting rapists while expelling protesters.

Speaking at the rally, government professor Sabrina Karim told the crowd that trust at Cornell had broken down at every level. Organizers have announced a seven-hour sit-in for Wednesday in solidarity with Doe.

In a Saturday video statement, Kotlikoff, who was interim president at the time of the alleged assault, said the school must do better. He said the board of trustees would announce an independent review by an outside law firm, pledged greater transparency and voiced support for changing a New York law that critics say makes prosecution extremely difficult when a victim voluntarily used drugs or alcohol. He also said the university would reexamine the role of Greek life on campus, where roughly a third of undergraduates belong to fraternities or sororities.

The pressure is unlikely to ease soon. Cornell's own 2025 survey found that 35% of female undergraduates reported nonconsensual sexual contact since arriving at the university.