Disclaimer: This article contains reports and discussions of sexual violence, including allegations of gang rape and campus sexual assault. Reader discretion is advised.
On the night of 19 October 2024, a young woman walked alone from a bar to the Chi Phi fraternity house on the Cornell University campus in Ithaca, New York. By the following morning, she would allege she had been drugged, incapacitated, and sexually assaulted by multiple members of the fraternity while barely conscious.
Two years later, the question that has convulsed one of America’s most prestigious universities, and drawn in New York state’s governor, attorney general, and the White House, is a deceptively simple one: what punishment is just?
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Detailed discipline summaries obtained by The New York Times provide the first public accounting of how Cornell administrators apportioned blame for the alcohol- and drug-fuelled gathering that the woman, identified in court filings only as Jane Doe, has said left her shattered and degraded.
The punishments, handed down after a closed proceeding that remained secret for months, ran the gamut from permanent expulsion to the requirement that a student write a reflection paper and attend a training session, a disparity that has fuelled fury on campuses nationwide.
Chi Phi Fraternity Rape: What Did Cornell’s Disciplinary Panel Actually Decide?
The punishment decisions were made by a three-person panel tasked with enforcing federal civil rights protections at Cornell under Title IX, which concluded that Jane Doe was sexually assaulted by two of the men she accused, while the others received lesser punishments.
The panel, which met on Zoom over 12 days in May 2025, did not conclude that Jane Doe was sexually assaulted by all the men she had accused, according to the discipline summaries. Two of the fraternity members were expelled. Another, who had already graduated, was barred from campus. Two more were suspended. The remaining men were handed lighter punishments.
The expelled men were Matthew Ingalls and Jonathan Newell. The panel found Ingalls responsible for sexual assault, judging that he had been willing to manipulate, exploit and endanger Jane Doe for his own self-interest and the entertainment of others. Newell, who Jane Doe told police had struck her with enough force during intercourse to leave bruises and had manipulated her into ingesting ketamine, was also found responsible for sexual assault. He had additionally sent a Snapchat message apparently inviting other fraternity brothers to join in, the files show.
Suspensions and disciplinary probation were issued to Winston Lee and Gillio Lopes. Jane Doe accused Lee of inhaling ketamine off her body and forcing oral sex on her; she alleged that Lopes had sex with her without consent. Lee was suspended for two years, with several semesters of disciplinary probation upon his return, while Lopes received a three-semester suspension and two years of probation.
Both were ordered not to contact Jane Doe and were required to study sexual harassment and write reflection papers.
A persona non grata order was issued to Diego Sarabia, who had graduated by the time the panel ruled. Sarabia, whom Jane Doe accused of forcibly kissing her, was barred from campus for three years.
The remaining two men, Scott Norris and Scott Kretzschmar, were required to write reflection papers and attend trainings on sexual harassment, social media use, and bystander intervention. They were also barred from contacting Doe. A recently unsealed lawsuit filed by Kretzschmar against Cornell shows he was not found responsible for sexual assault; instead, Cornell ruled he had committed the lesser offence of attempted sexual exploitation.
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