The president of Cornell College mentioned on Tuesday that he discovered {that a} scholar had reported being gang-raped at a fraternity get together on campus shortly after she first got here ahead in November 2024.
However within the months afterward, he mentioned, he didn’t comply with up together with her or search to study whether or not any of the accused males had been punished.
The president, Michael Kotlikoff, didn’t know that the lady had dropped out of Cornell till she filed a lawsuit final month below the pseudonym Jane Doe, he mentioned in an interview with The New York Instances.
“The truth that Jane Doe skilled what she skilled at Cornell is one thing that I’m personally sorry for,” Dr. Kotlikoff mentioned. “And I feel this complete campus is sorry that occurred.”
In the course of the 90-minute interview — the primary Dr. Kotlikoff has given because the lawsuit was filed — he expressed anguish and horror over the occasions which have plunged his administration into disaster, and gave the impression to be pleading for time to confront the scandal. He additionally indicated he wouldn’t resign, whilst he acknowledged that confidence in his management had been shaken.
“I’ve heard sufficient from the group that there’s a lack of belief,” he mentioned, later including: “Individuals are offended. I perceive that anger.”
The lawsuit accused seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity of pressuring Jane Doe to take ketamine earlier than sexually assaulting her at a celebration of their fraternity home in October 2024. All the boys named within the lawsuit have denied wrongdoing, and none have been charged with a criminal offense.
Its submitting on Sept. 16 touched off a fierce debate about consent and sexual assault on school campuses and led to intense scrutiny of Dr. Kotlikoff and Cornell. The varsity’s college senate is anticipated to carry a uncommon vote of no confidence within the president later this month.
Whilst he acknowledged anger over his dealing with of the rape allegation, Dr. Kotlikoff, 75, at different instances spoke with an virtually scientific detachment concerning the alleged assault and the varsity’s response. He repeatedly referred to his creation of a presidential job power in February 2025 to handle sexual assault on campus as an indication of his administration’s seriousness.
“We don’t arrange a presidential job power for minor points,” he mentioned, including that the panel launched orientation coaching on sexual assault and “bystander tasks” for all new college students earlier this yr.
He was joined throughout Tuesday’s interview by Anne Smalling, chair of Cornell’s board of trustees, in an implicit endorsement of his continued management of the 26,000-student campus. Members of the 64-member board, nonetheless, have been largely silent on the query of the president’s future.
The varsity gave the impression to be nonetheless scrambling to include the disaster on Tuesday. Shortly after the interview, Dr. Kotlikoff introduced that Cornell would ban events at fraternity homes for the remainder of the tutorial yr and add skilled sexual assault investigators to work with its campus police power.
Hours later, Cornell admissions officers despatched an e-mail to highschool counselors acknowledging that they may really feel conflicted about their college students making use of to the Ivy League faculty, and careworn that psychological and non secular counseling is obtainable to college students they’ve despatched there.
“We all know that a few of you’ll have blended emotions about recommending Cornell to college students now or sooner or later,” the e-mail learn.
Within the interview, Dr. Kotlikoff mentioned the steps taken by the varsity had been meant to reassure mother and father who had been contemplating sending their youngsters to Cornell that they might be protected.
“I’ve had various conversations with mother and father,” he mentioned. “I feel this can be a troublesome dialog, notably with the general public that’s gotten a lot totally different details about what truly went on and aren’t conscious of those processes, and the complexity of a Title IX course of,” which investigates potential violations of federal civil rights regulation on campuses.
He added that the administration needs mother and father and college students to know that “we take the problem critically, that we reply, that we heard the considerations, and we’re responding in particular ways in which handle these considerations.”
Dr. Kotlikoff mentioned he and different faculty officers didn’t have a full image of Jane Doe’s allegations and the following investigation till earlier this month, when The Instances revealed articles based mostly on greater than 1,000 pages of confidential data amassed in the course of the college’s Title IX investigation in 2025. He mentioned that, on the time, he was decided to permit that inquiry to be undertaken independently, and, to respect college students’ privateness, didn’t ask concerning the outcomes.
“I do assume it’s vital to know we have now extra info now than we had at the moment,” he mentioned.
However consultants in federal civil rights regulation mentioned Dr. Kotlikoff almost definitely might have examined any of the fabric gathered in the course of the investigation after the proceedings ended in the summertime of 2025.
“Typically talking, college presidents will be given entry to accomplished Title IX investigative information when reviewing these supplies serves a respectable institutional goal,” mentioned Scott Schneider, a Title IX lawyer and adviser, including that neither civil rights legal guidelines nor scholar privateness legal guidelines bar that entry.
Dr. Kotlikoff additionally mentioned he was not knowledgeable when the Tompkins County district lawyer declined to carry costs within the case. And he mentioned that, in hindsight, he felt he ought to have been alerted when Jane Doe withdrew from the varsity.
On account of the investigation, two of the fraternity members had been expelled and two had been suspended. One other, who had already graduated, was barred from campus. The remaining males had been handed lighter punishments.
The Title IX investigation additionally discovered heavy use of ketamine and alcohol by the Cornell college students. Dr. Kotlikoff acknowledged that medicine and alcohol stay an issue at Cornell, which is in a comparatively remoted group 4 hours north of New York Metropolis, however mentioned different colleges confront comparable points.
“I feel that this can be a drawback that pertains to 20-year-olds, 21-year-olds leaving dwelling for the primary time,” he mentioned, “coming into an surroundings the place there’s entry to alcohol, the place there’s sadly in some circumstances entry to medicine. They usually’re not ready. And naturally they’ve been uncovered to social media, pornography, misogyny.
“It is a problem for us. We have now to reply by constructing character, judgment, duty, look after one another.”
Dr. Kotlikoff and Ms. Smalling, the primary girl to steer the board and a third-generation graduate of Cornell, mentioned they hoped the college might develop into a task mannequin in how you can deal with these points. Each had youngsters within the Greek system at Cornell.
“What Mike and his staff are doing is dealing with the issue head on, taking motion, listening to the group, understanding the problems, looking for options, searching for methods to enhance, searching for methods to be higher,” Ms. Smalling mentioned.
Final week, the college named Sally Yates, the previous appearing U.S. lawyer basic, to steer an unbiased inner assessment of the varsity’s dealing with of the case and challenge suggestions for overhauling the system.
Neither Dr. Kotlikoff nor Ms. Smalling had been keen to decide to a time-frame for that investigation. Ms. Smalling mentioned that regardless of the exterior pressures on college management, it was crucial that Ms. Yates be given a large berth to conduct essentially the most thorough investigation potential.
Dr. Kotlikoff agreed. “A horrible occasion occurred at Cornell College,” he mentioned. “How can we make that into one thing the place we now lead on this space and develop into recognized for having responded to it within the applicable method? That, to me, is the problem of my time period.”
Hurubie Meko and Michael C. Bender contributed reporting.