Cornell University announced on Tuesday that former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates has been retained to lead a “comprehensive independent review” into how the school “prevents and responds to sexual harassment, sexual assault and related misconduct on campus” amid allegations of a fraternity house gang rape.
The announcement was made by the newly formed Special Committee of the Cornell University Board of Trustees.
Yates is a partner in the international law firm King & Spalding.
“Sally Yates brings extraordinary experience, independence and judgment to this work,” Anne Meinig Smalling, chair of the Special Committee, said in the statement.
Yates’ appointment follows a lawsuit filed on Sept. 16 by a former undergraduate student known only as Jane Doe, in which she alleged she was drugged and gang-raped in 2024 at the Chi Phi fraternity house on the Cornell campus.
Yates will also “conduct a detailed review of the University’s response” to that incident, “including whether Cornell followed its policies and procedures in responding to the matter,” the announcement said.
The case has rocked the university and started conversations about the treatment of alleged sexual assault on college campuses.
“The questions raised by the Jane Doe matter warrant a rigorous examination of Cornell’s response to that case, but our responsibility is broader,” Smalling said. “We have asked Ms. Yates and her team to examine Cornell’s overall approach to preventing and responding to sexual misconduct, identify where we are doing things well and where we can do better, and recommend changes that will help make our community safer.”
The review, according to the Special Committee’s statement, will assess Cornell’s practices against applicable requirements under Title IX, the Clery Act, the Violence Against Women Act’s Campus SaVE Act and New York State law, as well as recognized best practices in higher education for preventing and responding to sexual misconduct.
The Special Committee said Yates and her team “will have full independence in conducting the review and will report their findings and recommendations directly to the Special Committee.”
“It is imperative that Cornell be willing to examine itself with the same rigor we expect of others,” Smalling said. “We want to understand not just what happened in 2024, but how Cornell can become a leader in preventing sexual violence, supporting those who come forward and responding to allegations rigorously, fairly and compassionately.”
Jane Doe originally made a complaint to campus police in November 2024, three weeks after the alleged incident occurred.
Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten said he reviewed the six-page Cornell Police Department’s summary of the woman’s statement that same month and decided based on that information that although the conduct in the case was “morally disturbing,” it did not constitute a crime.
Van Houten reopened the case on Sept. 27 after speaking with Jane Doe and her lawyer in the wake of a civil suit being filed alleging that she had been drugged and raped. The men named in the lawsuit have denied all wrongdoing and have not been criminally charged.
Van Houten defended his decision not to bring charges in an interview with ABC News in September, saying, “she clearly consented in the beginning, and there was never any indication that she changed that to the things that she participated in.”
“If at any point Jane Doe had said, ‘I don’t consent to this anymore,’ or in those words, or in any form of communication. If there had been continued sexual activity, contact by these individuals, that would be a crime. But that’s not what was alleged in her statement,” Van Houten said.
Documents reviewed by ABC News show that campus police noted that “a female undergraduate student reported that she was recently raped by 8-10 men at the Chi Phi fraternity house” but that information was never passed on to the district attorney.
Last week, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Cornell board member, removed the Van Houten from the case and appointed the state’s attorney general, Letitia James, as special prosecutor.
The New York Attorney General’s Office said it had already reached out to Jane Doe as part of the re-opened criminal investigation.
Van Houten supported the decision and put the blame on Cornell.
In notes from 2024 reviewed by ABC News, a Cornell officer memorialized a call with the DA’s office that said Van Houten’s office declined to review additional evidence gathered by campus police before deciding not to charge the alleged attackers. The investigator for the campus police said he reached out to the DA’s office, but they “stated that they all agreed that, based on [her] statement, criminal charges would not be pursued in this case.”
Van Houten has said Cornell police did not share all the materials they had.
Cornell said in a statement on Sept. 21 that it takes allegations of sexual violence “extremely seriously” and that it “investigated and adjudicated the allegations consistent with university policies.”
In a subsequent statement, the school said it conducted a “thorough” Title IX investigation and “issued a range of sanctions, which included expulsions and suspensions from Cornell.
Cornell’s president, Michael Kotlikoff, released a video statement on Oct. 3, saying the incident is a “defining moment” and pledged reforms to campus culture and university policies and procedures.
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