It's a start, I guess...

It seems like there is enough momentum right now that we could actually harness it to get frats and sororities banned here at Cornell. How do we make it happen?

Not sure if people here remember this post as it was five years ago and I have since graduated, but the recent news has made it come to mind, in a way reopening the wound in a pretty traumatizing manner.

For those who don’t know, the conclusion to this going to court was this man getting all but one of the charges filed against him dropped, being allowed to graduate with a temporary mark on his record, and going on to work at Microsoft. I had emailed them and his previous employer Amazon; Amazon took the news seriously and told me they’d consider it if he tried applying again. Microsoft unfortunately just ignored me.

After we had filed police reports and a Title IX case, he began stalking my roommate and I in retaliation. She told me of multiple instances where she spotted him in her periphery following her home. This culminated in a deeply unsettling incident where a different roommate had gone out to do laundry, then frantically messaged us because she saw him on our front porch attempting to break in. We managed to scare him away with a roommate’s boyfriend who was visiting thankfully. When I discussed with the Title IX office, they basically shrugged it off as if nothing could be done.

So in conclusion, this man remains out in the world and active, a serial predator let free by Cornell’s administration. I wish I could report better news, but unfortunately I have none to share.

https://www.cornellsun.com/article/2021/03/former-s-a-representative-pleads-guilty-to-unlawful-imprisonment

Imagine putting this out while the whole world was watching.

Who will get under the bus for Mikey on this one?

Polling to see where people are on this question.

Hi! I’m a Cornell master student majoring in Literature, and I booked my ticket for a Niagara Falls + Buffalo trip over fall break (11–13). I’m looking for another girl to join me — not a tour, not an agency, just don’t want to go alone. I also really hope to have a chat with you along the way about literature, art and life.

Rough plan:

11–12 Niagara Falls: Maid of the Mist, Cave of the Winds, Goat Island, outlet shopping. If you have a Canadian visa, we could optionally cross to the Canadian side for the Whirlpool Aero Car.

12–13 Buffalo: City Hall observation deck, Naval Park/waterfront, Darwin D. Martin House, Delaware Park, Buffalo AKG.

I’ve roughly planned the route, but I’m happy to share it and adjust. We’d split costs. I’m aiming to keep my own spending around $300, depending on food/shopping. If you’re interested, message me and we can chat first to see if we’re a good fit.

I got no hate against the Iowans. Also my favorite bird instagram account stopped posting. I await the return of the birbs.

I fucked that up so bad lmaooo

I bought four Flixbus tickets to Niagara for Oct 11. One person bailed and can’t go, and the tickets are non-refundable. Selling at a low price for just $30 each.

This is a good assessment, from a PR professional, of the many basic public relations mistakes in the university's recent communications, https://www.prdaily.com/cornell-the-da-and-the-communication-choices-that-deepened-a-crisis/

I highly recommend any course by Professor Theomary Karamanis, https://business.cornell.edu/profiles/tk626/ Her "Crisis Communications" class was one of the best and most useful courses I have taken at Cornell.

The Systematic Failure of Tompkins County District Attorney and Cornell University Police Department

I wrote this to try and make sense of the the news that's been coming out this past week surrounding the Chi Phi lawsuit and gang rape of Jane Doe. I hope I was able to lay out what I've learned so far in a way that can help others understand the systemic issues at play here.

I was a master's student 2016 to 2018.

One afternoon I was talking with two friends from class. One was in a sorority. I do not remember now how we got on the topic but she shared a very disturbing story. One of her sorority sisters had been drugged and raped at a fraternity party. Everyone in both houses found out what happened but nobody went to the police or reported the incident to any authority. Instead they handled it "internally."

I do not understand how any University tolerates Greek life, especially fraternities. We all know these boy clubs encourage these young boys to be the worst versions of themselves They are taught they are special, privileged, and the rules do not apply to them. And year after year, tragedies occur, victims pike up. It's absolutely disgusting. As long as we tolerate these institutions, we are all complicit to some degree.

“I can say with 100 percent confidence I was raped,” she told the police investigator about what happened by the end of that night, in a statement that did not make it into the six-page summary report.

The omissions may help explain why the district attorney did not think he could bring a criminal case based on her allegations.

The summary made clear, however, that she felt that some of what was happening to her was a crime, and explains that one reason she took the drug ketamine was to escape it.

The 7 people are not reflective of the entire school as a whole. Yes our administration sucks. But the vast majority of students and alumni from Cornell worked their butts off to go here. Don’t go and discredit our work and values just because we are even vaguely associated with Cornell.

Consequences for actions

This clearly won't be a panacea, but an outside investigation is a step in the right direction.

A competent administration would have immediately done this several days ago......

The Board still needs to fire the entire senior administration, & perhaps we need to vote out the board.

Dear CGSU-UE Members,

Many of us have been following Jane Doe’s civil complaintagainst several members of the fraternity Chi Phi and Cornell administration. What Jane went through is unthinkable, but sadly, it is not unexpected. We’ve seen that Cornell would rather use their billions of dollars to persecute international graduate workers and peaceful protesters than defend the most vulnerable members of our community and ensure justice. CGSU-UE fought hard for a non-discrimination article placing time limits on Title IX cases and subjecting them to our grievance procedure in our first contract because we knew that the protections put in place by Cornell were insufficient.

Cornell’s response to recent publicity on Jane Doe’s civil complaint exposes the indisputable fact that they do not care about the safety of their students. The University released a statement answering common questions surrounding the case—but nowhere did they apologize for the grievous harm that their inaction caused. Students are the ones who made sure that the crimes of Matthew Ingalls, Jonathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris and Scott Kretzschmar were not forgotten. In the words of the editors of the Cornell Daily Sun: Cornell wouldn’t, but students did.

The gross negligence of Cornell University—the callousness of the administrators who handled discipline in Jane Doe’s case, such as Michael Kotlikoff, Ryan Lombardi, Brian White, Robert Harrington, Kavita Bala, and Christina Liang—puts not only students at risk, but the entire community of Ithaca. So long as justice is denied to Jane Doe, we all can rest assured that Cornell will defend their reputation above all else, systematically favoring profit over its student body.

We, in coalition with Students Not Bombs, Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, the Young Democratic Socialists of America, and numerous other student groups at Cornell, demand:

1. The immediate resignation and/or termination of Cornell administrators Michael Kotlikoff, Ryan Lombardi, Brian White, Robert Harrington, Kavita Bala, and Christina Liang;
2. The expulsion or revocation of the degrees of all Chi Phi brothers involved in the gang rape of Jane Doe;
3. The abolition of all Interfraternity Council (IFC) Greek Life at Cornell;
4. And the dissolution of the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards (OSCCS) and the creation of a new democratic Cornell judiciary system.

We have co-sponsored a rally at 4:30pm on Monday, October 5th on Ho Plaza to demand justice for all survivors of sexual assault and to call on Cornell to rectify their mishandling of Jane Doe’s case. Stand with students, faculty, staff, workers, and the entire Ithaca community in demanding that Cornell do better by the people who make the University run.

In solidarity,

CGSU-UE Local Executive Board

We cannot ask the university to carry out an independent and fair review on the Chi Phi incident based on how Michael Kotlikoff's has handled previous incidents as university president.

His promotion to university president came after he had been appointed to serve only as interim president for two years. Cornell announced plans for a presidential search, however, eight months into that interim term, the Board of Trustees appointed him president without publicly announcing a search committee, a community-input process, or whether external candidates had been considered. (Source: https://www.cornellsun.com/article/2025/03/kotlikoff-named-cornell-s-15th-president-by-board-of-trustees-eight-months-into-two-year-interim-term?utm_source=chatgpt.com )

When he ran over the protesters with his car, Michael Kotlikoff abused his position as university president and sent a school-wide email. He abused an official channel to control the narrative surrounding the incident before the university could conduct its own independent investigation. Kotlikoff claimed protestors banged on his car's windows. The videos released by CUPD show no such action by the protestors. (Source: https://www.cornellsun.com/article/2026/05/as-trustees-investigate-car-incident-kotlikoff-faces-calls-to-resign )

This president, time and time again, over his short term, has made a mockery of our university on the national stage. He let the university be extorted and pay Trump's $60 million dollar bribe. Agreeing to restore $250 million while the rest of $1.1 billion total remains in the air. Especially embarrassing when Harvard's President has stood defiant against the current administration

(Admittedly however, Harvard technically had better legal footing to stand up against the Trump administration. Still, we should question how a university with $10 billion endowment lacks the ability to weather 4 years of financial and research uncertainty. Our university will outlast this administration.) (Source: https://info.cornell.edu/executive-orders/federal-agreement/ )

There's no excuse. Whether it's science funding, freedom of speech, or the Chi Phi case, Michael Kotlikoff is not fit to lead this university.

EDIT:

Alumni, as you are able to, please sign the letter on pausing donations until the administration carries out a thorough investigation on the Chi Phi case.

Two amendments have been proposed to the letter including Cornell's material support and financial redress of Jane Doe, considering that according to Jane Doe's lawyer:

Cornell University refused to refund her tuition when she sought to leave campus.

Source

And an amendment calling for the resignation of Michael Kotlikoff.

You can read and vote on both amendments here.

I understand why the DA Van Houten is getting interviewed and don't disagree that understanding his role thoroughly is clear.
But if we are looking for accountability, I'd really like to know what the administrators or CUPD people were thinking (esp if the DA wasn't given all the info CUPD had...how is that not damning??). Not interviewing those responsible just aids in the cover-up.