Some Cornell faculty members say a letter purportedly from Jane Doe in which she said she “felt unsupported and disbelieved” by university president Michael Kotlikoff was not shared with them.
One faculty member called that a “silencing of Jane Doe’s voice.”
Doe has filed a lawsuit alleging gang rape at a 2024 fraternity party. The allegations have started a firestorm of controversy and prompted a criminal investigation as well as an independent review at Cornell over how it handled her allegations.
The letter purporting to be from Doe was dated Oct. 14 and sent to Cornell faculty leaders. That’s the same day members of the Faculty Senate began debating a possible no-confidence vote in Kotlikoff’s administration.
In the letter, the writer says she felt “disbelieved” by Kotlikoff. The letter also asks the faculty be made aware of its contents. The writer says she’s not trying to tell the faculty how to vote, she just wants them to have this information before they vote.
However, three Cornell faculty sources tell CBS News New York’s Mahsa Saeidi they never received the letter from university administration.
“I think what’s the most important at this point is that the Faculty Senate did not receive that letter from Jane Doe,” Cornell Faculty Senate member Risa Lieberwitz said.
Lieberwitz said because the Faculty Senate didn’t receive the letter from Doe, they missed the opportunity to question Kotlikoff directly about it.
“What we have is the silencing of Jane Doe’s voice to the Faculty Senate when we were meeting and when we had the opportunity to ask about it,” Lieberwitz said.
The university says the dean of faculty sent the letter to general counsel for verification and then shared it with the independent review.
“Now we have an administrator responding through a spokesperson who is saying this is what I recorded in my notes. And I think that there’s a real question, once again, of transparency,” Lieberwitz said.
CBS News New York obtained a copy of the letter through another university source. It describes a conversation that the writer says was relayed to her by her former sorority president who claimed Kotlikoff questioned why Doe didn’t come forward with her allegations sooner. The letter goes on to say that, as a result, Doe “felt unsupported and disbelieved by President Kotlikoff.”
CBS News New York has reached out to Doe’s attorney, who told the New York Times the letter was authentic.
“I don’t think anybody doubts that the letter was from Jane Doe,” Lieberwitz said.
Cornell disputes the secondhand account the letter references, saying Kotlikoff was questioning why bystanders didn’t report the incident sooner, not Doe.
Multiple faculty members told CBS News New York the letter should have been shared with them. Lieberwitz said it was fortunate they received the letter before the second meeting to discuss a no-confidence vote on Oct. 24.
As of right now, Kotlikoff is not scheduled to be present at that meeting, members of the Faculty Senate told CBS News New York.
Associate Professor David Bateman of the American Association of University Professors supports a vote of no-confidence.
“Why I’ve come out in favor of a no-confidence vote, is simply that I was not persuaded after that meeting that the university administration is actually going to change its structures to listen to students and to faculty in a serious, deliberative way,” Bateman said.
Tuesday, former Acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates, who has been appointed by Cornell to lead a review of the university’s handling of sexual assault allegations, sent an email which CBS News New York obtained from a member of the Cornell community who received it. In the email, Yates promises to review the university’s response to Doe’s allegations and Cornell’s sexual harassment and assault policies as well as make recommendations from its findings.
All seven men accused of wrongdoing in Doe’s lawsuit deny the allegations.
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