AOC Calls Out Cornell and 'Culture of Rape' as Prosecutors Reopen Campus Assault Case

As national outrage grew over an alleged rape of a former Cornell University student by seven members of a fraternity in 2024, US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday condemned a culture in which students accused of sexual assault are "protected" while survivors like the woman in the Cornell case, identified as Jane Doe, are often forced out of their campus communities.

The progressive New York Democrat spoke at a town hall in Ithaca, which has been rocked in recent weeks by the news that Doe filed a lawsuit against the school and several campus organizations and individuals over the alleged crime.

Ocasio-Cortez is visiting several cities across New York State this week, kicking off a voter outreach effort and meeting local officials ahead of a possible 2028 US Senate run. She has also been named as a potential presidential candidate. The event she spoke at Sunday was hosted by More Perfect University and titled "Students vs. Billionaires," but Ocasio-Cortez began by speaking about the case, which prosecutors on Monday said they were reopening after learning of new evidence.

"The fact that Jane Doe, that survivor, lost her education—because you can't stay in school when something like that happens to you... the fact that she had to lose her education and those men were protected by an institution and granted an Ivy League degree as a reward—never again," said Ocasio-Cortez. "Never again."

The Cornell case centers around an incident that allegedly took place in October 2024 at the Chi Phi fraternity house in Ithaca, according to the plaintiff's lawsuit.

The student was visiting a friend at the house and was intoxicated when two male students coerced her into snorting a substance that they said was ketamine, the lawsuit says. She was then sexually assaulted, and one of the men subsequently sent a message in the fraternity's group chat on Snapchat inviting other members to assault the victim.

Doe's attorney, Thomas Giuffra, has said that two of the seven men named in the lawsuit were expelled from the school, while others were temporarily suspended or required to attend workshops or write essays.

Giuffra has also said that the Cornell Police Department did not follow up with Doe after her initial report, and that she was never contacted by a "specially trained detective or district attorney" regarding her allegations.

“In my experience, speaking with an abuse survivor requires delicacy, understanding, and specialized training," Giuffra told ABC News. "An average university police officer would not have these skills."

Matthew Van Houten, the district attorney for Tompkins County, New York, told ABC News Monday that his office was reopening an investigation into the case and considering whether to bring criminal charges. He told the outlet that the details of the assault in the lawsuit were "dramatically different” from the plaintiff's statement to police in 2024, when his office relied on the Cornell Police Department's investigation.

Two of the men accused in the lawsuit denied to ABC that they had committed sexual assault.

In 2024, Van Houten said, the victim did not allege that she was drugged or that she didn't consent to sexual activities. He also said his office had not been not provided with a screenshot of the Snapchat messages.

Giuffra suggested the university authorities had not passed the evidence along to the DA's office for its review of the investigation.

“My client went to the Cornell University Police because a crime was committed," Giuffra told ABC News. "It was the obligation of the police to investigate the complaints. They were given the group chat inviting the members of the fraternity to rape my client. This was a critical piece of evidence supporting that a crime had occurred. Despite this there was no follow-up with Ms. Doe either by the Cornell Police or the Tompkins County district attorney."

Ocasio-Cortez said Sunday that the fact that the students "posted in a group chat... means it was normal to them. That means it was acceptable to them. This is a culture, this is norms, these are practices. And what we must do is understand that we cannot protect those spaces anymore. We cannot."

After the lawsuit was filed on September 14, student journalists at the Cornell Daily Sun expressed outrage at the university's failure to publicly release information from a Title IX investigation Cornell officials opened regarding the alleged rape, which resulted in the expulsions and lesser punishments of the men accused of the attack.

"Safety is not adjacent to the educational mission—safety is, in fact, its precondition," wrote the editors of the student-run newspaper. "Cornell has said as much, in the document that governs the student conduct, which announces that it is 'intended to preserve a higher education community and residential campus where ‘any person’ in the community can pursue their education in a secure and nourishing environment.'"

"So we ask the questions the university has left unanswered," continued the editors. "If Cornell follows the law, then we should have access to a public deposition issued from the school, the Title IX investigation opened in January 2025, and how it concluded. Why were these men allowed to 'pursue their education in a secure and nourishing environment' and she was not? Why was she not informed of the outcome of her own Title IX investigation? Who benefited from the 23 months of elapsed time when the public knew nothing?"

The editorial named the seven men accused in the plaintiff's lawsuit, writing, "We know who you are and we refuse to let you benefit from this university's concealment."

Cornell on Monday released a statement saying it supported the Tompkins County DA's decision to reopen an investigation into the case, and rejecting claims that officials had not properly sanctioned the men named in the lawsuit.

In Ithaca, Ocasio-Cortez said that "a lot of work" needs to be done at the federal level to protect college students from assaults on campuses.

"The culture of rape," said the congresswoman, "is protected in elite institutions across the United States, including Cornell University... This entire country is sick and tired of not just financially corrupt, but morally corrupt leadership."