Cornell names former acting US attorney-general to lead review on rape allegations
Debra Kamin
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Cornell University named Sally Yates, the former acting US attorney-general, on Oct 6 to lead an independent internal review of a former student’s rape claim amid growing outrage about how it was first handled.
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it → name → outrage
Yates, 62, will also examine the school’s policies related to sexual assault allegations, including how they are investigated and what support is given to students, the university said in a statement.
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university → examine → statement
Anne Smalling, the head of the committee that hired Yates, told The New York Times the university was obligated to the woman who had filed the rape complaint.
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who → hire → complaint
“We owe it to her and to our community to take a hard look at what happened so that we can determine what we can do better around both prevention and response,” she said.
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she → owe → prevention
Yates and the white-collar law firm King and Spalding, where she is a partner, will “have independence in conducting the review,” Cornell said in a statement on Oct 6.
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Cornell → have → Oct
Students and politicians have demanded answers from Cornell after a former student sued the university, seven men, a fraternity and her sorority in September, claiming she was sexually assaulted in October 2024 at a fraternity party.
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she → demand → party
She claimed the university allowed a culture to flourish that led to the assault, and then did not conduct a thorough and proper investigation after she alerted campus police.
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she → claim → police
Her claims have set off a wave of shock and anger across the country and renewed national conversations over sexual assault on college campuses.
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claims → set → campuses
Three weeks after the incident in 2024, the woman, identified as Jane Doe in court papers, filed a report with campus police, which was then passed to the Tompkins County district attorney, who declined to file charges.
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who → identify → charges
All of the men have denied any wrongdoing.
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All → deny → wrongdoing
None of the men have been charged with a crime.
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None → charge → crime
Their fraternity, Chi Phi, has been banned from campus.
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fraternity → ban → campus
The university, though, conducted its own monthslong investigation, which includes more than 1,000 pages of transcripts, text messages, hours of interviews with a dozen people and the woman’s statement to police, which she signed.
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she → conduct → which
A three-member panel at the school met on Zoom over 12 days in May 2025 and expelled two men, barred one who had graduated from campus, suspended two and gave lighter punishments to the rest, according to the documents.
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The panel did not conclude that Jane Doe was sexually assaulted by all the men she had accused, according to discipline summaries reviewed by the Times.
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she → conclude → Times
The district attorney, Matthew Van Houten, has said that the Cornell University Police Department only forwarded a six-page summary to him.
But, according to the records, the police did offer Van Houten more evidence to review, but he declined to do so.
Governor Kathy Hochul rebuked Van Houten on Oct 1 and appointed the state’s attorney-general, Letitia James, to review the evidence and determine whether criminal charges should be filed.
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charges → say → evidence
It is a common practice for universities to turn to outside law firms when faced with a significant public scandal, and the reactions to those inquires have typically been mixed.
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reactions → turn → inquires
In 2011, Penn State hired former FBI director Louis Freeh of the firm Freeh, Sporkin & Sullivan to identify what the university might have known about the allegations of child abuse against Jerry Sandusky, a former assistant football coach.
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university → hire → Sandusky
Freeh delivered a damning indictment that declared several leaders had known about the abuse and concealed it from law enforcement.
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leaders → deliver → enforcement
Critics said he had overstepped his mandate.
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he → say → mandate
Columbia University also commissioned Joan Loughnane, a partner at Sidley Austin, to conduct an external investigation into the school’s handling of sexual abuse allegations made against former Columbia gynecologist Robert Hadden in 2012.
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University → commission → 2012
In her findings, released in 2026, Loughnane documented systematic failures by administrators to address his abuse, but the university was criticised for the slow process of the report.
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university → release → report
Yates is a high-profile choice for a role that will inevitably be deeply scrutinised.
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that → scrutinise → role
She previously led the US Soccer Federation’s investigation into allegations of abuse and misconduct in women’s professional soccer, and currently leads King and Spalding’s crisis management practice.
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She has spent nearly four decades with the Department of Justice.
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She became assistant US attorney for the northern district of Georgia, her home state, in 1989 and rose through the ranks to become the first woman to lead that office in 2010.
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She → become → 2010
She became deputy US attorney-general in 2015 under President Barack Obama.
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She → become → Obama
In that role, she wrote a policy memo, known as the Yates memo, redefining how the country prosecutes white-collar criminals.
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country → write → criminals
In 2017, just days after accepting the role of acting attorney-general under President Donald Trump, she was fired for refusing to enforce the president’s immigration ban.
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she → accept → ban
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