Cornell University students staged a protest in solidarity with Jane Doe, a former classmate whose gang-rape allegations ignited a national uproar. Protesters demanded the school take firmer action against sexual violence on campus and called for an external inquiry into how the matter has been handled by Cornell's administration. In a…
Page B3From§Eachthe supper edition — 6 October 2026
National Review calls the system a success the day a third reviewer arrives and one faces removal.
As it ran on the front
"No Stone Unturned," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's promise about the Cornell rape case, born September 30 in a statement calling the allegations "horrifying," died three days later, NBC News reported October 3, when the public learned the Tompkins County district attorney had declined to bring charges without reviewing the witness statements and other evidence Cornell police had already collected. It was survived, as of that account, by a tip: Cornell police had received an anonymous call about a Chi Phi cover-up that went nowhere.
New York Attorney General Letitia James holds government letterhead; Governor Kathy Hochul appointed her special prosecutor October 2, the Guardian and NBC reported, to take over the case the district attorney had already let go cold. Sally Yates does not hold government letterhead. Cornell's trustees, a private body answering to nobody's ballot, retained the former deputy attorney general October 6 to review how the university — their university — handles sexual misconduct complaints, the Washington Post and ABC News reported the same day. And the Faculty Senate is not a person at all; it is weighing a no-confidence vote in the university's leadership, the Post reported, which is a body asking a body to resign from reviewing itself.…
…(cont) Three overseers, one of them elected, one of them hired by the accused party's own trustees, one of them a vote that has not happened yet. That is not thoroughness. That is three different offices circling the same shit nobody looked at the first time, and National Review published, also October 6, under the headline "The System Worked in the Cornell Seven Case," the argument that the authorities handled the matter in keeping with the facts and the law available to them. The facts available to them, per NBC, did not include the witness statements.
The system produced one more penny-ante complication the same day: a lawyer for one of the Cornell Seven asked BBC News to have James removed, on the grounds that comments she made about the case before she was ever appointed should disqualify her from leading it.
Elsewhere on campus, over 35 percent of undergraduate women reported nonconsensual sexual contact in a university-run 2025 survey, the Hill reported October 2. Students protested the administration's handling of the matter this week, the Guardian's video showed, demanding firmer discipline and an outside inquiry — a fourth request for review nobody has agreed is the last one needed.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that the next office to open a file on this case be the one that reads what the last office already collected.
“Three different offices looking into the same case is not accountability, it's a shell game: one investigator answers to Cornell's trustees, one got a removal motion filed against her before she'd done a single interview, and the only elected one of the bunch is the one somebody's trying to get thrown off. The review pile keeps growing for one simple reason — nobody with the actual evidence in hand opened the file the first time, and every new name added to the list is just a receipt for that.”
“Look, National Review called it correctly — the system worked based on the facts available to the authorities at the time, and that's not spin, that's just a fair reading of — well, of the facts that were available, which, I'm told, didn't technically include the witness statements anybody collected. Did I say that? That's not — let's move on.”
Earlier in this story
- Schumer's 'no stone unturned' vow survived by the stone no prosecutor turned. By Mort · the early bird edition, 6 October 2026
- DOJ prosecutors ignored their own evidence; a judge dismissed their case with prejudice, permanently. By Mort · the matinee edition, 6 October 2026
The receipts
Based on the information available to them at the time, the authorities handled the matter in keeping with the facts and the law.
The BBC speaks to experts about current US state sexual assault laws and why some believe changing them will help alleged victims.
University leaders may face a no-confidence vote by the Faculty Senate over their response to allegations of sexual assault on campus.
Cornell University has retained former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates to lead an independent review of how Cornell responds to sexual assault cases.
School trustees appoint Sally Yates to review policies as university grapples with fallout from alleged frat gang rape A former high-ranking Department of Justice official will look at how Cornell handles sexual misconduct complaints, university trustees announced on Tuesday as they tried to address an outpouring of anger over…
New York Attorney General Letitia James is investigating the rape allegations, but the lawyer says comments she made on the case should disqualify her.
Sally Yates is a former acting U.S. attorney general and deputy attorney general and a longtime federal prosecutor.
· Woman in alleged Cornell gang-rape case was ‘failed’ by system, New York governor says from the morgue, 2 Oct 2026
· NY AG Letitia James Appointed Special Prosecutor in Cornell Case from the morgue, 2 Oct 2026
· Cornell agrees to outside review of how it handled alleged sexual assault: Governor from the morgue, 1 Oct 2026
· Cornell survey finds 35 percent of female undergrads reported nonconsensual sexual contact in 2025 from the morgue, 2 Oct 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.