Cornell rape case latest: Students protest for 'Jane Doe' as university taps former acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates to lead investigation

Thousands of people gathered at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., on Monday in support of "Jane Doe," the former student who alleges she was drugged and raped by multiple members of a fraternity in October 2024.

The "Justice for Survivors" rally was organized by over 20 student organizations who led a late afternoon march to Day Hall, which houses the university's administrative offices and had been vandalized by activists overnight.

Students, faculty, and residents from across the state took part in the protest calling for Cornell administrators to resign over their handling of the case.

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"We are known as the rape school," Saya Taylor, a Cornell sophomore, said at the rally. "We can be known as leading a nationwide reform movement."

Demonstrators held signs accusing the Ivy League school of protecting the alleged rapists and demanding accountability.

"Jane Doe deserved a campus that supported her," Taylor said. "Jane Doe deserved an administration that delivered a fair and proper judicial process. Jane Doe deserved a police department that would actually follow up on her case. Instead, she was silenced."

Late Monday, the Cornell University faculty introduced a resolution declaring it has no confidence in the administration's ability to address the "ongoing crisis of sexual assault" on campus. According to NBC News, the proposal is expected to be considered by the Faculty Senate on Oct. 14.

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"The goal is to really force systemic change," Faculty Senator Paul Ortiz said in a statement to NBC. "Women need to feel safe."

On Monday night, Cornell University President Michael Kotlikoff and Ryan Lombardi, the school's vice president for student and campus life, met with the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly, which pressed them on their response to Jane Doe's allegations.

"We're all angry. I understand that anger," Kotlikoff said, according to the Cornell Daily Sun. "People want easy answers to this."

He added: "This passion, if appropriately channeled, can help us as a community address this issue."

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On Tuesday, Cornell's board of trustees announced it has retained former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, a partner at law firm King & Spalding, to lead an independent review of how the university responds to sexual assault on campus.

"As part of that broader mandate, Yates and her team will conduct a detailed review of the University's response to the allegations involving Jane Doe and members of the Chi Phi fraternity in October 2024, including whether Cornell followed its policies and procedures in responding to the matter," the board of trustees said in a statement.

The developments came hours after audio of a phone call between Jane Doe and one of the accused fraternity members, recorded weeks after the alleged incident, was released by ABC News. During the call, Jane Doe said she was "10 shots deep" when she arrived at the Chi Phi fraternity house and was now struggling to remember what had caused "so much damage on my body and brain."

"The only way for me to heal is to know what happened," she said. "That's why I'm trying to just piece it together, you know, like I'm just like confused." 

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The fraternity member told her that she consented to having a threesome with him and another fraternity brother.  He also insisted that Jane Doe had told him she had not been drinking when she showed up.

"You did tell me you were sober, by the way," he said. "You said you hadn't been anywhere."

"That is not true. I never would have said that," she replied.

At one point during the Nov. 7, 2024, call, Jane Doe told him, "If I wanted to take this somewhere, what y'all did would be classified as gang rape." 

The fraternity member then suggested that their memory of what transpired may be inaccurate.

"I have racked my brain for this mystery," he said. "You know, it's possible that both of us, like, remember this, and it's not true."

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Jane Doe pushed back: "No, because I remember looking up and being like, 'That is too many people.'"

Read more from Yahoo: A timeline of the Cornell University rape case

ABC News also reported this week that a day after a campus-wide alert notified students of the reported rape at Chi Phi, Cornell's police department received an anonymous tip from a caller who said that the fraternity's leadership asked a potential witness to stay quiet because "the reputation of all involved and the frat would be ruined" if details were made public.

According to the report, one female student also told Cornell investigators that the fraternity "held a meeting essentially to get all of the men on the same page about what happened."

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The fraternity members described the incident as a "consensual orgy," but expressed concern that it "would be bad for our image," the same student told investigators.

Other calls and text messages obtained by ABC News suggested that some of the fraternity members attempted to contain the allegations in the weeks that followed.

"When was the last time you spoke to [Jane Doe]?" the fraternity's president wrote in the messages to the member who invited Jane Doe to the house.

"Yesterday ... what's the plan of action?" he replied. "Should I call [Jane Doe]? I don't think she would have reported this."

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Jane Doe, who was 20 at the time of the alleged 2024 rape, reported the incident to Cornell University police on Nov. 8, 2024.

She filed a civil lawsuit on Sept. 16 against the school, seven current and former Chi Phi fraternity members, the Tri-Delta Alpha Beta sorority where she lived, and a local bar where she said she was served alcohol on the night of the alleged incident.

All of the men identified in Jane Doe's civil suit have denied any wrongdoing, according to the New York Times. None has been charged with a crime. And Chi Phi remains banned from campus.

In court papers filed on Monday, the owners of Moonies Bar and Nightclub denied that they "sold, furnished or assisted in procuring alcoholic beverages to any person under [the] legal drinking age" or "any visibly intoxicated person."

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They also said they "neither knew nor should have known any assault would occur," and had no obligation to protect Jane Doe from "sudden criminal acts of third parties off premises."

Cornell University has come under intense scrutiny for its handling of the case.

In an eight-minute video statement released on Saturday, Kotlikoff, Cornell's president, said the university "must do better."

"What happened to Jane Doe in 2024 is deeply disturbing and will weigh heavily on our community for years to come. My heart aches when I think of what she experienced," Kotlikoff said. "It raises heartbreaking and troubling issues about sexual assault, dehumanization and aspects of party culture, alcohol and drug use. It also raises questions around the investigations conducted after the allegations were reported."

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said on Friday that the woman was "failed" by those obligated to protect her, including university police and a prosecutor who initially declined to bring charges.

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Hochul said that she had lost faith in Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten and appointed New York Attorney General Letitia James as the special prosecutor to oversee the criminal investigation.

"This young woman had already endured something that is utterly unspeakable," the governor said. "And then at every turn, she was failed by people and institutions with an obligation to protect her."

Meanwhile, Jane Doe's lawyer, Thomas Giuffra, said that his client has received "multiple threats" in recent days.

"There are people out there trying to track her down," Giuffra said on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday. "They said we're gonna shut you up. You're gonna still get hurt by us. You're gonna pull this lawsuit out or we're gonna do something to hurt you even more."

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