by Amber Schroeder, Executive Director, ATSA
The allegations against seven former Chi Phi fraternity members at Cornell University, now widely known as the "Cornell Seven," have sparked outrage and an important conversation about accountability.
This week, that conversation shifted. It is no longer only about what happened at a fraternity house in October 2024. It is also about what happened to a young woman's words after she brought them to the system that was supposed to respond.
What we have learned
- Her words were left out. According to The New York Times, Jane Doe told Cornell University Police in a lengthy 2024 interview that she could say with complete confidence she had been raped. That interview was condensed into a six-page summary for the district attorney, and the summary did not include that statement. Prosecutors declined to bring charges.
- A second summary told a different story. When Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten reopened the case on September 27, he released his own summary describing her conduct as voluntary and consensual. ABC News then obtained her full statement, which included passages his summary did not, among them her telling officers the encounter felt like coercion.
- Prosecutors did not see the full transcripts. Van Houten has said he was never given the full transcripts of her interviews with campus police.
- The state has stepped in. On October 1, Governor Kathy Hochul appointed Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor. Cornell has agreed to an independent review. The Ithaca Police Department says the allegations were never reported to it.
There is still a lot we do not know. Attorneys for several of the accused men have publicly denied the allegations, and the record includes text messages and statements that will be contested in court. ATSA will not try this case in the court of public opinion.
But the case raises a question squarely within our expertise: What does real accountability for sexual harm look like, and what does a system need to make it possible?
Accountability starts with an accurate record
Every decision after a report of sexual harm rests on the record. Whether to charge. How to discipline. What support the person harmed receives. How professionals assess the person who caused harm.
When a summary drops someone's own description of what happened to her, the system has not just lost a detail. It has reshaped the case before anyone decides it.
Accounts of sexual harm are often nonlinear, especially when alcohol and drugs are involved. They can hold memory gaps, self-blame and uncertainty right alongside moments of complete clarity. A summary that keeps the uncertainty and drops the clarity is not neutral.
An accurate record protects the accused, too. Due process depends on decision-makers seeing the full account. And no clinician can meaningfully assess or treat someone from a record that was filtered before it reached them.
Institutions must be accountable, too
We usually talk about accountability for individuals. This case is a reminder that systems carry responsibility as well.
ATSA's 2019 public policy recommendation on campus sexual misconduct welcomed the public's demand to hold both individuals and institutions accountable. The second half of that sentence matters as much as the first.
At Cornell, the campus police department is part of the university. The same institution was responsible for student safety, the police investigation, the disciplinary process and, now, its own defense in a civil lawsuit. That does not mean anyone acted in bad faith. It does mean safeguards are essential:
- clear standards for what goes into a summary of a report;
- transparency about what was left out, and why; and
- independent review when the process is questioned.
The stakes are high. Cornell's own 2025 campus survey found that 35% of undergraduate women who responded reported experiencing nonconsensual sexual contact since entering Cornell, up from 23% in 2023. Most incidents happened in campus-affiliated settings such as residence halls and fraternity houses. An institution that asks students to take responsibility for harm has to examine its own role, too.
Consequences need a purpose
ATSA's campus recommendation says institutions must hold people accountable "in a way that contributes to the prevention of future sexual harm." It also warns that a one-size-fits-all approach does little to make campuses safer.
That cuts both ways.
The harshest consequence is not automatically the most effective. Suspension, expulsion or criminal charges may be appropriate, but severity alone does not tell us whether someone is less likely to cause harm again.
And calling a response "rehabilitative" does not make it meaningful. According to Jane Doe's attorney, two of the seven students were expelled and others received suspensions, workshops and written essays. Cornell has not confirmed individual outcomes, citing federal privacy law.
An essay, a class or a counseling session cannot stand in for accountability. Real rehabilitation asks someone to understand their behavior, address what drove it, build new skills and show that they have changed.
Rehabilitation is work. Accountability should be, too.
Individualized does not mean minimized
People who cause sexual harm are not all alike. They act for different reasons, in different patterns, with different levels of risk.
That is why ATSA recommends sanctions based on a professional assessment. At a minimum, our campus recommendations say, that assessment should look at a student's:
- vulnerabilities, such as cognitive understanding;
- triggers, such as sexual entitlement;
- drivers, such as high alcohol use within their fraternity; and
- protective factors, such as stable relationships.
Drawing on research by Lamade and colleagues, the recommendation also describes college as a "perfect storm" of risk factors: young adults still developing impulse control and judgment, newly free of parental supervision, surrounded by alcohol and drugs. It is equally clear about what that means. These factors contribute to sexual misconduct. They do not excuse it.
Individualizing a response does not minimize what happened. It means taking prevention seriously enough to ask what will actually change behavior. And any assessment is only as good as the information it starts with.
ATSA members can help. Our recommendation urges campuses to work with local clinicians who can assess students before they return from suspension, provide specialized treatment and advise those deciding sanctions. Institutions can find that expertise through ATSA's referral service.
Prevention includes the people in the room
The lawsuit alleges that a message went out to a fraternity group chat while the assault was happening. Whatever the courts find, that allegation points to a piece of prevention campuses too often skip.
ATSA's recommendation warns that if campuses focus only on preventing victimization, half the picture is missing. It calls for bystander programs that teach students to step in when something looks wrong, and to talk with a friend the next day about their behavior toward another student the night before.
Prevention is not only about the person who might cause harm. It is about everyone who might see it coming.
We can hold two truths at once
Cases like this are often framed as a choice. Do we care about the person who was harmed, or do we believe the person who caused harm can change?
That is the wrong choice. ATSA's campus recommendation calls for policies and practices that:
- hold people who commit sexual assault accountable;
- provide safety and support to those who have been harmed;
- give those who have caused harm the resources to stop; and
- prevent sexual assault from happening in the first place.
None of that is possible if the person who was harmed is not accurately heard.
Questions for the field
Who decides what goes into the summary of a sexual assault report, and what standards guide them? When a campus police department investigates a case tied to its own university, what safeguards should be in place? And how do we hold institutions to the same standard of accountability we ask of individuals?
We should expect more than punishment for its own sake. We should expect far more than symbolic consequences dressed up as rehabilitation. And we should expect the systems that respond to sexual harm to be honest about what was reported.
Real accountability asks a harder question: What will make this person, and this institution, less likely to cause harm again?
Our measure of success cannot be whether someone was punished. It has to be whether we made people safer.
References
- Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (2019). Public policy recommendation: Addressing campus sexual misconduct. Beaverton, OR: Author.
- Cornell University (2025). 2025 Cornell Survey of Sexual Assault and Related Misconduct.
- Tompkins County District Attorney (2026). District Attorney statement regarding Jane Doe v. Cornell University et al.
