Jane Doe said she felt ‘unsupported and disbelieved’ by Cornell president in letter sent to faculty leaders

By Jeff Winter, Kara Scannell, CNN

(CNN) — A woman who sued Cornell University last month over an alleged gang rape at a fraternity house in 2024 said she felt “unsupported and disbelieved” by Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff shortly after she reported her alleged sexual assault, according to a letter she wrote to two senior Cornell faculty members.

The 101-page complaint — in which the woman is identified as Jane Doe — prompted a re-opening of an investigation into her claims and a re-examination of how universities across the US handle allegations of sexual assault. It also prompted Cornell students and faculty members to call for a vote of no confidence in the administration

Cornell professors grilled Kotlikoff about their concerns on October 14 as they moved toward a no-confidence vote.

Doe said in the letter that following her reporting of her alleged assault, the president of her sorority spoke with Kotlikoff, who Doe says asked her something “along the lines of,” “Why did she wait so long to report it?” according to a copy of the letter obtained by CNN.

The sorority president “interpreted his question as an expression of doubt in the veracity of my story,” according to Doe’s letter, which acknowledges that the information is from “a second-hand account.” “It diminished my confidence in the administration’s ability to approach my experience with the understanding, sensitivity, and fairness I had hoped for and expected from what had been my dream school,” the letter reads.

A Cornell University spokesperson disputed that account, telling CNN, “The second-hand account of the question asked by President Kotlikoff in a January 2025 meeting in the letter is incorrect, based on a documented first-hand account. The question ‘why did it take so long for the assault to be reported’ was directed at bystanders who did not use Cornell’s anonymous tip line, despite ongoing social media activity about the incident in October 2024. He was not questioning Jane Doe’s reporting.”

CNN has reached out to Doe’s attorney for comment and also reached out to an attorney for the sorority.

Doe was allegedly assaulted in the early morning of October 20, 2024, and she reported the incident to Cornell University police on November 8, CNN previously reported.

Doe sent the letter through her attorneys to the Dean of Faculty and the Speaker of the Faculty Senate the day Cornell’s Faculty Senate met to deliberate a vote of No Confidence over Kotlikoff’s leadership.

Doe said she did not want to “prescribe how the Senate should interpret this account, but rather to provide information that its members may wish to consider or investigate further,” the letter reads.

“It is important to me that the Faculty Senate be made aware of this letter so that its members can make an informed choice about how they wish to consider or act upon the information it contains,” Doe wrote.

The letter was never shared to the larger body, according to two Cornell professors.

Cornell professor Paul Ortiz, who sponsored the Senate’s no confidence vote, told CNN, “I am disappointed that the letter that Jane Doe sent to Cornell faculty has still not been shared with the faculty and that we are only learning about it because of media coverage.”

In an email to Faculty Senate members on Tuesday morning, which CNN also obtained, Cornell’s Dean of Faculty Chris Schaffer emailed members of the Senate to confirm he received Doe’s letter on October 14.

“In the interests of transparency, I am writing now to inform the Senate that I received this communication, that I passed it on to the Office of the General Counsel, and that they have sent it to the investigatory team led by Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates,” Schaffer wrote.

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CNN’s Hanna Park, Danya Gainor, Holly Yan, Gloria Pamino, Avery Wang and Blair Chavis contributed to this report.