Two years after a woman alleged a gang rape at Cornell University, renewed attention to the case and the limited consequences faced by the alleged perpetrators has raised questions about what higher education owes students who experience sexual assault on campus as well as how consent and intoxication are understood under New York law. A woman identified as Jane Doe filed a civil lawsuit on Sept. 16, alleging that she was sexually assaulted, gang-raped, and pressured to take drugs and drink alcohol by seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity on the night of Oct. 19, 2024. The lawsuit is filed against the fraternity, Doe’s sorority chapter, and Cornell University; it names Matthew Ingalls, Johnathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris, and Scott Kretzschmar as defendants.
Prosecutors said this week they were reopening a criminal investigation into the case after declining to press charges originally. Separate attorneys for Kretzschmar and Lopes denied the allegations in statements to ABC, while Norris, via an attorney, denied engaging in sexual activity or drug use but acknowledged that he sent a message included in the complaint. When sexual assault allegations of this kind occur on campus, they can be addressed in three distinct ways: through school disciplinary proceedings, criminal proceedings, and civil lawsuits.
Doe’s civil lawsuit alleges that Cornell failed to protect her. Her attorney has separately criticized authorities’ handling of the criminal investigation, although observers say what’s known as the “voluntary intoxication loophole” in state law could limit what prosecutors are able to charge. Here’s what to know about how the case was handled—by Cornell and the criminal justice system—before, and what could happen next.
Doe reported the alleged assault to campus police in November 2024. According to her complaint, Cornell began its Title IX investigation on Jan. 14, 2025. Title IX is a law dating back to 1972 that is meant to, among other things, ensure that a college investigates when there is sexual assault on campus.
Central to this premise is that Title IX is meant to ensure that sexual violence does not impede a student’s access to education. Read More: Trump’s Title IX Announcement Is Cruel. But It Does Not Change the Law Doe’s attorney has said that Cornell expelled two of the seven accused students.
Cornell has confirmed that its disciplinary process resulted in expulsions and suspensions, but has not disclosed individual outcomes. The lawsuit alleges negligence, breach of contract, and violations of New York law. Cornell responded in a statement last week, saying that it could not confirm the individual disciplinary outcomes due to student privacy laws.
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