On October 19, 2024, a 20 year old Cornell student, Jane Doe, went to the Chi Phi fraternity house to meet her friend, Matthew Ingalls, after drinking earlier that evening. Ingalls was the one who initially took her inside and proposed a threesome with another fraternity brother. Her lawsuit alleges they forced her to consume alcohol, marijuana, and ketamine, an anesthetic that can cause hallucinogenic effects. After she became incapacitated, she was sexually assaulted by multiple fraternity members. Their names are Diego Sarabia, Gillio Lopes, Johnathan Newell, Matthew Ingalls, Scott Kretzschmar, Scott Norris, and Winston Lee. For around seven hours, Jane Doe was raped by these seven men from the Chi Phi fraternity. A screenshot was released of a group chat in which Jonathan Newell encouraged others to join in on the sexual activity. There were 57 men in that group chat, and not a single one spoke out. It has been revealed that Jane Doe spent the rest of the morning in the Chi Phi house asleep, and when she woke up she did not clearly remember everything that had happened to her and was in communication with Matthew Ingalls. Over the next few days, she attempted to come to terms with what had happened to her, and as rumors started to spread around campus, she felt embarrassed and confused.
On November 7, 2024, Jane went to a hospital in Ithaca, New York to get a sexual assault forensic exam. The next day, November 8th, she reported her incident to Cornell University Police. The New York Times received more than 1,000 pages from Cornell’s internal investigation. The documents show that Jane Doe’s understanding of the event changed over time. She told police that it took time for her to fully realize that she had been sexually assaulted. This kind of delayed recognition can occur after trauma; survivors may initially minimize what happened, try to make sense of another’s actions, or feel emotionally disconnected from the event.
Cornell conducted a Title IX investigation. Title IX is a federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in education. Unlike a criminal investigation, this process was focused on determining whether a student violated the university’s policies. According to ABC News, Cornell conducted at least 12 days of hearings, interviewed 50 people and heard from 32 witnesses. Ultimately, two of the men were expelled; the rest were briefly suspended and required to write an essay. Matthew Van Houten, Tompkins County District Attorney, decided not to pursue charges in 2024. His reasoning was that Jane Doe had “described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious, and consensual.” This is why none of the seven men faced criminal charges at the time. It is important to remember that unconscious people cannot consent, and forced consent or “sure” is not consent either, and that by saying “stop,” consent can be revoked.
Now, two years after the alleged incident, Jane Doe has filed a civil lawsuit. In her lawsuit the defendants are the seven fraternity members, the Chi Phi fraternity, Cornell, a local bar, and her own sorority, Tri Delta. On September 28, 2026, the criminal investigation was reopened. Van Houten announced that his office had reopened the criminal investigation and would present evidence to a grand jury. New York Governor Kathy Hochul appointed Attorney General Letitia James as a special prosecutor to oversee the criminal investigation. At a recent press conference, Hochul stated, “No institution gets to protect its reputation at the expense of a young person seeking justice. No public official gets to look the other way when the system breaks down and fails young people. And as governor, I will not allow anyone to sweep this case under the rug.”
As the investigation continues, there are still unanswered questions about what happened and how Cornell, law enforcement, and prosecutors handled the case. The reality is that this case exposes a legal loophole that allows rape culture to continue. Under current law, a person can be considered mentally incapacitated when a substance was given to them without their consent, but the law does not explicitly provide the same protection when someone voluntarily consumes alcohol or drugs and later becomes too intoxicated to consent.
It is incredibly disturbing what happened to Jane Doe in that fraternity house, but it is also disturbing what has happened afterward, and how long it took for the rest of us to hear about it. As college women, we are constantly told to be careful, watch our drinks, stay with our friends, to not walk home alone, and protect ourselves. At some point, the responsibility cannot continue to fall on women to prevent things like this from happening. The fear of sexual violence is not an isolated concern but reality for so many: one in five women in the United States have experienced rape in their lifetime.
Now we see what happens when the systems that are supposed to protect us fail. We can only hope that it does not take more women coming forward for those systems to change. Until then, we will continue to speak up, support one another, and stand together.