A prosecutor reopened a Cornell gang rape investigation. A woman’s lawsuit alleges seven fraternity members assaulted her in 2024.
A New York prosecutor said Monday he is reopening an investigation into allegations that seven Cornell University fraternity members sexually assaulted a woman in 2024, after she filed a lawsuit last month accusing the school and others of failing to protect her. Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten said his office will present evidence to a grand jury, following criticism over why no criminal charges were filed after the incident.
The lawsuit, filed Sept. 16 by a woman identified only by a pseudonym, alleges she was assaulted at the Chi Phi fraternity house in Ithaca in October 2024 after being pressured into using ketamine, marijuana and alcohol, and that she became incapacitated during the assault. She reported the incident to campus police roughly three weeks later. Van Houten said that in her original statement to authorities, she did not allege that she had been gang-raped or drugged, and that her attorney had not previously contacted his office about reconsidering the earlier decision not to prosecute. He said he reached out to the attorney recently after being asked by the community to revisit the case.
Cornell said it conducted its own disciplinary investigation in 2024 and imposed sanctions, including expelling some students and suspending others, and that the fraternity’s campus chapter was closed and remains barred. The university did not disclose how many students were expelled or suspended, citing federal privacy law, and disputed the lawsuit’s characterization that students were offered a lesser consequence of submitting essays as their sole punishment. The national Chi Phi organization did not respond to requests for comment. The woman’s lawsuit names the university, the fraternity, the seven individuals, an Ithaca bar and others as defendants and seeks unspecified damages; her attorney did not immediately comment on the reopened investigation.
The case has drawn broader attention to how colleges handle sexual assault allegations. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticized what she called a normalized culture of misconduct at elite institutions after the lawsuit’s filing. A Cornell task force formed in 2025 has recommended changes to the school’s handling of such cases, and a 2025 campus survey cited in the task force’s report found that more than a third of undergraduate women reported experiencing sexual assault during their time at the university.
Sources: This report is based on information from the Associated Press (via PBS NewsHour), Reuters, CNN, BBC News, ABC News and The Washington Post.