The former student who accused seven men of sexual assault in a lawsuit that has rocked Cornell University wrote in a letter to faculty leaders last week that she felt “unsupported” and “disbelieved” by the school’s president, Michael Kotlikoff.
In a two-page letter to the faculty senate, the former student, known as Jane Doe, said she wanted to share a “second-hand account” as the senate considers a rare vote of no-confidence in Dr. Kotlikoff’s administration. The letter described a comment she said he made in a meeting shortly after she alleged she was raped at a fraternity house.
His “initial response,” she wrote, “was along the lines of, ‘Why did she wait so long to report it?’”
The alleged assault occurred on Oct. 19 and 20, 2024. She went to the campus police about three weeks later, on Nov. 8.
A Cornell spokeswoman said that while Dr. Kotlikoff made a similar comment at a January 2025 meeting, the “second-hand account” was incorrect and the words were not directed at the former student.
“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,” the university said in a statement. “He was not questioning Jane Doe’s reporting.”
The former student, now 22, stopped short of telling the faculty senate how it should vote in her letter, but she said Dr. Kotlikoff’s words, as told to her, had shaken her trust in Cornell.
“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,” she wrote.
Her letter, obtained by The New York Times and authenticated by her lawyer, was dated Oct. 14, 2026, two weeks before the faculty senate is scheduled to begin its vote. The letter shows how the woman, who dropped out of Cornell after the incident, is actively trying to weigh in on the roiling debate around her allegations.
“She believed that this was important information that the faculty should know when considering what steps to take” in relation to Dr. Kotlikoff, said Thomas P. Giuffra, her lawyer.
While the faculty senate has no power to remove officials, a no-confidence vote would be a strong rebuke of Dr. Kotlikoff, who has had the support of Cornell’s powerful board of trustees in the face of some calls for his resignation. The senate will meet to debate the no-confidence resolution on Oct. 28, with voting continuing for several days after.
Mr. Giuffra sent the letter on behalf of his client to Samuel Mayer Nelson, the speaker of the faculty senate, and Chris B. Schaffer, the dean of faculty. Mr. Nelson and Mr. Schaffer did not immediately respond to requests for comment. It was unclear how many of the approximately 135 members of the faculty senate had seen the letter by early Tuesday morning.
The university has faced intense criticism for its handling of the former student’s allegations in the weeks since she filed a lawsuit against the university; the Chi Phi fraternity and seven of its former brothers; and her sorority, Delta Delta Delta.
In the lawsuit, Jane Doe claims she was given drugs and gang raped over several hours in the Chi Phi fraternity house. All of the men have denied wrongdoing and none have been charged with a crime.
When the former student reported her allegations to campus police a few weeks later, a Title IX investigation was triggered.
The meeting the former student referred to in her letter took place in January 2025 and included representatives of many of Cornell’s sororities as well as Dr. Kotlikoff and at least one other administrator, according to a person with direct knowledge of the meeting who spoke on condition of anonymity to reveal details of a private meeting.
According to a Cornell official familiar with the matter, the conversation took place at a meet and greet for Dr. Kotlikoff as he was getting to know student groups during his interim president period. The official Cornell account comes from contemporaneous notes from the meeting taken by the other administrator.
In the letter, the former student recounts the exchange that she said she was told happened between Dr. Kotlikoff and the president of her sorority. She wrote that her sorority sister relayed the conversation to her “with concern.”
“She interpreted his question as an expression of doubt in the veracity of my story,” Jane Doe said in the letter.
The sorority president said other faculty or staff members heard the conversation, according to the letter, and that “at least one of them appeared distressed” by the president’s comment.
“When the then-Tri Delta President relayed this conversation to me, I felt unsupported and disbelieved by President Kotlikoff,” the former student wrote. “I am sharing this account now because, to my knowledge, only a few individuals are aware of the conversation; I do not know if you or other members of the Faculty Senate are among them.”
She added, “I would not want to withhold something potentially pertinent, only for Senate members to later discover that information relevant to their deliberations had not been made available to them.”
The former president of the Cornell chapter of Tri Delta declined to comment.
Dr. Kotlikoff has said he was not aware of the details of the former student’s case after her initial report, but has stressed that he took its claims of drug and alcohol fueled abuse seriously enough to create a presidential task force on campus sexual assault in February 2025.
Cornell ultimately barred the fraternity from campus, expelled two of the accused men and suspended two others. The other three men accused by the former undergraduate received lighter punishments.
Hurubie Meko and Andrea Barnes contributed reporting.
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