Cornell University is suspending parties and other social events at fraternity houses for the rest of the academic year and will give the New York State Police a role in investigating sex crimes on campus, university officials announced Tuesday, amid mounting outrage over its handling of allegations that a female student was sexually assaulted at a fraternity house in 2024.
The measures announced by Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff include a suspension of all parties and social events at Interfraternity Council houses through the end of the 2026-27 academic year and a new “zero tolerance” policy for violations that would result in the immediate emergency suspension of a chapter.
“These measures will provide time for a thorough review of fraternity life at Cornell to determine whether and how it can safely continue,” Kotlikoff wrote in a letter to the campus community.
Where do you think criminology students get their experience?
Edit: The wildest part to me, all jokes aside, isn’t that universities are allowed to handle rape allegations. It’s that state police, based on the wording in this article (I’m too lazy to look up New York state law), need permission from the university to investigate themselves:
Somebody please correct me if I’m wrong and I’m just reading too deeply into poor phrasing, but WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT “ALLOW”??
Edit 2: I lied. Here’s the law. So it looks like “allow” here is less “permit” and more “facilitate”.
Cornell university operates a 55 member police force. Most big universities have a police force. These aren’t mall rent-a-cops or other security guards. They’re a full legally empowered police department like any other.
They are; I agree. What had shocked me was mainly the idea that they had to give state law enforcement permission to investigate. Turns out, that was wrong.
I don’t entirely know how I feel about law enforcementt beholden to a private institution investigating rapes on their own campus, but that’s at least a more nuanced debate than my mistaken reading of it.