Today, Explained - What happened at Cornell

Episode Date: October 1, 2026

It took "Jane Doe" two years to get an investigation reopened into allegations of sexual assault against seven men at Cornell University. Why does the legal system continue to fail survivors? This episode was produced by Ariana Aspuru and Hady Mawajdeh, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Gabriel Dunatov, engineered by Bridger Dunnagan, and hosted by Noel King. The Cornell Police headquarters on the Cornell University campus in Ithaca, New York. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. New Vox members get $20 off their membership right now. Transcript at ⁠⁠vox.com/today-explained-podcast⁠.⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you were a student at Cornell in the fall of 2024, you might have learned from a crime alert email about a sexual assault on campus. If you weren't, you probably learned about it on or around September 16th of this year when a young woman filed a civil lawsuit. In it, she accuses Cornell, a fraternity, a sorority, and a bar of negligence, and seven men of sexual assault and battery. About the men, some of the evidence in the suit is horrific. In a text thread, one man asks if the shop is still open. The shop is a euphemism for a drunk, drugged college sophomore. She went to the police and told them what happened as she understood it at the time. The police took her story to the DA and the DA declined to file charges.

Something went horribly wrong here, but there is fierce disagreement about what exactly it was. Coming up on today, explained from Vox the facts of this case and why it's so hard to prove what happened at Cornell was a crime. Support for today, Explain, comes from ServiceNow. AI is moving fast, but without visibility, it's just chaos, different tools, different models, different teams using AI in completely different ways. A mess. Service Now turns that mess into control. With the AI control tower, you see all your AI across the business in one place. Oh, what it's doing, what it's done, what it's about to do, so you stay in control. To put AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com. Support for the program today comes from Fetch Pet Insurance. Fetch is the most complete pet insurance for dogs and cats, according to consumer advocate. You get paid back up to 90% of vet bills at any vet in the United States and Canada, with claims paid back in as little as two days.

Go to Fetchpet.com slash save right now for your free quote. That is fetchpet.com slash save. This is today explained. Amy Wang is a staff reporter at the Washington Post. Amy, in October of 2024, a young woman went to a fraternity house near Cornell University's campus. Who is this young woman and why did she go to the frat house that night? Well, the young woman is only identified in documents as Jane Doe. So we don't know her name.

She was at the time 20 years old. She was a sophomore at Cornell. And around 11 p.m. on the night of October 19, 2024, this Jane Doe goes to a bar on campus. And then after that goes to the Kai Phi fraternity house to hang out with a friend. And, you know, she had said that she was already pretty intoxicated at that point. and she'd had maybe 10 drinks in about three hours, and her friend at the fraternity house hands her a beer. After that is where she alleges that another member of the fraternity pressured her

into taking drugs, specifically ketamine and marijuana and drinking more alcohol. She alleges that two members of the fraternity assaulted her, and that one of them later sent a Snapchat message out to active Chi-Fi members, and the message is pretty graphic, but essentially invites them to join in, and several did. In about three weeks, this young woman was going to go to the Cornell campus police and report what happened that night. But in the interim, what was going on, what was happening?

So in the interim, we now know based on reporting by the New York Times and I believe CBS News, this young woman was a member of a campus sorority. So she went to a member of her sorority and was trying to make sense of what had happened. I think she was still processing it in real time. She wasn't using, according to their reporting, the word rape or assault. and she was also seeing rumors circulating around campus about what had taken place at the fraternity house and was growing concerned about how they portrayed her. She, in the interim, also received a text message from one of the seven men at the fraternity, essentially apologizing for how things went down the other night. and she is not yet accusing them of assault, but is chatting, even seeks to reassure him in that first message. I believe on October 22nd, she then makes an appointment at the campus health clinic because she had what she thought was a UTI and wanted to be tested because she told the doctor that she had gone through a traumatic experience.

According to the New York Times reporting, you can see her thinking about what happened, kind of evolve over those few weeks. She at some point says that, you know, this is starting to ruin her life and she's sleeping and crying and she's feeling ashamed and she's just really grappling with what had taken place trying to make sense of it. By November 3rd is when, according to these investigative documents that were obtained by the Times, she kind of comes to this conclusion that what happened at the party at Kai Phi was assault. So she texts one of the seven fraternity members and says, this was not consensual. I was, you know, I was given more ketamine than I can remember. And that she says that she was uncomfortable. So a few days later, November 7.

27, 24, according to these documents, she goes to the ER, an ER in Ithaca and asks for a rape kit. And the following day is when she goes to Cornell University Police. Okay, so these documents that were obtained by the time suggest that, as you say, this young woman's thinking was evolving on what had happened that night. When she goes to the police, how does she characterize what happened to the police? What does she tell them? So what she tells the police is that she, she believes she was assaulted. And she tells the police that it had started out as something that was consensual. And then at the end, she says, quote, I can say with 100% confidence, I was raped, end quote.

She tells police she was extremely uncomfortable and that she kept taking ketamine in part because she thought she might black. out and pass out. She had thought of at least two of the men as her friends. After the events of that night, she is then confronted with rumors that were spreading across campus, sort of depicting her as loose and blaming her, essentially. What happens after Jane Doe talks to the police? What did they do? When she talks to Cornell University Police, they summarize what she she said in a six-page statement that she then signs, and that is the statement that is submitted to the Tompkins County District Attorney. Okay.

And the district attorney would be the person who would bring charges or decide not to bring charges. What does he decide? Yes. So the district attorney decides not to bring charges in 2024 based on he has said the sworn statement that she signs. to police. All right, so the DA says, no charges for the seven men.

Were they disciplined in any way? Yes. So we don't know exactly how each of the men were disciplined. Cornell has said that they faced a range of disciplinary measures, including expulsions and suspensions. I think one of the details that had gotten particularly viral about this is that, that the disciplinary measures included for some of the students to write essays. Cornell has not denied that, but it has specifically denied that the students only had to write essays as a

disciplinary measure. But the university has cited privacy laws and said it really can't release any more specifics about how individual students were punished or not punished. What did Jane Doe do after first talking to the police and then learning the DA wasn't going to press charges? After she goes to police, we know she remains on campus and she has to continue seeing some of these men. And she also participates in the school's Title IX investigation, which takes place over several months and concludes at some point in 2025. I want to ask you about the DA. He is, as you say, reopening the criminal investigation. He is also out in public defending his decision to not press charges in 2024.

How is he defending himself? Yes, the DA is a big part of the story. This is the Tompkins County District Attorney. His name is Matthew Van Houghton. And he has said that in 2024, based on the written statement from Jane Doe, they did not have what they need. to press criminal charges. To be clear, you never saw any statement where the victim alleged to be raped. I never saw that statement. It was not included in the six-page statement.

We felt that we had a comprehensive and complete account of what happened, and we had no reason to believe that there was missing or omitted information. And it's important to note that we, as in the public, we've not actually seen a copy of Jane Doe's sworn statement. the DA issued a press release in which he summarizes that statement. And in that summary, he describes her characterization of this as voluntary and conscious and consensual. Now, that is at odds with some of the investigative documents that we've seen reported since then, including that transcript of, you know, Jane Doe's interview with Cornell police in which she describes it very confidently, says that she believes. she was raped and even says that she was, you know, physically hit during that night. The DA said that he did not see before the lawsuit the screenshot of the Snapchat message, where the frat members are talking pretty crudely about the situation, and that he also says he didn't see the transcript of the interview between Jane Doe and police. We now know the names of the seven men who were there that night.

Have they said anything? The seven men themselves have not publicly said anything. The lawyers for three of those seven men have publicly denied the allegations. One of them says that his client went into the room but immediately left and didn't participate in the assault. This is a story that is developing very quickly and it seems like new information is coming out just about every day. What do we know about what happens next?

So there's at least two things going on here. There is the DA's reopened criminal investigation. The DA has said he is putting together a case to present to a grand jury. And we don't know if there's enough to pursue criminal charges, but he has started that process and is actively collecting what he says is any new evidence that might change things. I've reached out to her attorney, to Jane Doe's attorney, and we've coordinated, we've discussed the fact that I would like her to testify at the grand jury. Between now and then, we need to understand what has changed, what insights that she has gained, what additional information is there that we didn't know in 2024.

And that's why I want to put the matter in front of the grand jury so that she can tell her truth to the grand jury and include every piece of evidence. Separately, there's the civil lawsuit that Jane Doe, filed last month, and that is not dependent in any way on how the criminal investigation goes, but that will also proceed against the university, the seven fraternity members, and the fraternity itself. Amy Wang is a reporter with The Washington Post. When we come back, a former sex crimes prosecutor is going to give us her view on what went so wrong here. I'm Rima Grace, and this is uncomfortable.

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According to consumer advocate, Fetch covers accidents, illnesses, diagnostics, And more. Every vet in the United States and Canada is in network, and you can build a plan that fits your budget. And once approved, claims are paid back in as little as two days. To learn more, go to fetchpet.com slash save. That's fetchpet.com slash save. You're listening to Today Explained. Lauren Hirsch is the CEO and co-founder of World Without Exploitation. This is a coalition designed to combat human trafficking and sexual exploitation. And another life, Lauren, was a New York City prosecutor in the Brooklyn DA's office and chief of the sex trafficking unit there. Lauren, the DA said his office reviewed Jane Doe's statement at the time and found at the time that what she described didn't meet the legal definition of a crime. And I think people want to understand, how is that possible?

To be really candid with you, Noel, this is an area that seems super under. clear to me because the role of the district attorney in that moment is to investigate. We're not, when you first get a case file, you first get a victim statement, and especially with facts as horrific as these facts are or our understanding of this six-page document that the DA read, I would never say that this is a clear-cut case where there'll be a conviction at the end. We never know that. What I can say with 100 percent certainty is if you get a document like that, as a prosecutor, that is a significant investigative lead.

And so as a prosecutor, what I believe to be, would be good practice, is starting to pull the layers back, trying to understand what transpired here, interviewing the victim. That feels critical. That never happened. We now know that there are all these text messages that were shared between these boys and the prosecutors now saying, but I didn't know about the text messages. At this point, I'm hearing about the new evidence as the rest of the world is. The Snapchat was disgusting and vulgar and immoral. But the question that we analyzed was, did Jane Doe consent to what happened? It's my understanding that there were a lot of boys on that particular text thread.

And so a good investigator would have gone to that fraternity house and tried to interview some of those boys, tried to understand, What were the contemporaneous statements made at that time? Were there any text messages? Was there any social media activity? And I believe that had they done that in a timely fashion, they likely would have come up with these text messages at that time and not two years later. Okay, what you're saying is interesting because the DA has come out publicly and defended himself by saying essentially the details of this lawsuit, which was filed. in September of this year are different from the details in the young woman's 2024 statement

to the police. Taking her words and believing every one of her words, she never says that she was drugged without her knowledge. She admits to taking drugs and alcohol voluntarily and with knowledge. She does not allege that she was forced to engage in any acts. And he has sort of used that in his defense, right? Here's what I knew at the time versus what this young woman is saying today. I think I hear you saying maybe.

That's not an excuse? Well, so you're asking a couple of things, right? You're asking about the inconsistent statements, and I find it troubling that the DA is leading with this notion that the victim has inconsistent statements. because that feels to me like here we are making excuses and blaming the victim. And for me, where I sit, that's troubling. It also begs the question, what kind of inconsistencies exist between the initial document and the document? I'm not even sure exactly what we're talking about today, because to my knowledge,

the DA has not yet interviewed this victim. Perhaps he's talking about the civil complaint, which I would think that that is written in a way where she has worked with her lawyer to put this together. And the initial statement, the initial six-page document that the DA read, my understanding is that it is basically a summary of a conversation. And so inconsistencies come in all shapes and sizes. So it's hard to know exactly what we're talking about here. But it is very common for there to be some inconsistencies.

That is not a deal breaker despite the fact that this prosecutor wants the public to believe that it is. What do you make of the prosecutor speaking publicly in the way that he is at this moment? I find it rather confusing. I'm not really understanding why he is doing a media tour rather than sitting in his office, doing the work, interviewing this particular victim, interviewing witnesses, seeing what evidence actually exists. It seems to me that the DA has gotten to a conclusion before he's done the work in actually investigating the case. and it is deeply troubling. And I think the governor should consider appointing a special prosecutor because I am not certain based on this media tour that he's done,

that this DA is able to give this particular survivor a full and fair investigation of the facts. Drugs and alcohol are central to this case, right? The young woman admits she had been drinking and she was using ketamine. under New York law, how does that affect whether or not someone is believed to be capable of consenting to sex? Yeah, so New York law is actually really problematic here, Noelle, and it's a place where I believe we are desperate for a legislative fix. I think that there have been a lot of advocates who've been championing a correction to this voluntary intoxication loophole for a lot of years, and we've not been able to get it. And so the New York law makes it very, very hard to prosecute a person who is when the victim is voluntarily intoxicated but not unconscious.

And so this new law would allow the prosecutors the ability to bring cases when the victim is so severely intoxicated but not physically helpless and where a reasonable person should have known the victim's condition. And in this particular case, based on what we're hearing, she was in a condition where a reasonable person should have known her condition. And so in this particular instance, the DA is right. This is a very, very hard case to prove in this moment. But I'm a big believer. We don't not prosecute cases because they're hard cases. but at the same time, we know that a change to the law is critically important. You clearly want more investigation here.

What questions do you want asked? Who do you want to be spoken to? So before I say who and how and what that investigation looks like, I think it's really important to say that when two years have passed and the DA did not investigate these cases immediately, we have a big problem on our hands, right? The fact that the DA did not investigate this from the moment he found out about this,

it's really problematic because, as we know, evidence disappears, memories fade. When you're dealing on a college campus with a specific culture, there may be a narrative that takes hold. And so it's important to talk about the time lapse and how that harms the case. That said, I still believe that the investigation is critically important. I don't believe that this DA is the right person to do the investigation.

I think a special prosecutor should be appointed. And then I think that the prosecutor and law enforcement should be interviewing everybody who was in that fraternity on that night, anybody who saw this victim before, saw this victim after, were there any statements in the immediate aftermath of her leaving that fraternity? Was there an outcry witness? We know that some text messages have come to light. Are there other text messages? I suspect there are.

I'd want to interview as many of those boys as possible to understand what was going on, because some of those text messages that have come to light, one says free pussy, basically essentially saying by the boys or whoever wrote this, pussy for the taking, right? That doesn't seem like if you're thinking about somebody's mindset, that doesn't sound like mindset that is engaging in consensual sex. And so I think it is critically important that we understand all of the course. of that night. You know, I think we want to see what is out there that helps us get closer to understanding what transpired that night. I think the law enforcement failed this young person,

the fact that there's no investigation that happened immediately in the aftermath of this incident, no investigation. It's really just, we just continue to fail survivors all over the place, and we have to start doing better. Lauren Hirsch of World Without Exploitation. Lauren is a former sex crimes prosecutor. Hadi Mugdi and Ariana Espudu produced today's show. Amina El Sadi edited, Bridget Dundigate and David Tadishore engineered, and Gabriel Duntov check the facts.

I'm Noelle King. It's today explained.