New York State Police will take over future sexual-assault investigations at Cornell University in Ithaca, Governor Kathy Hochul announced on Thursday, October 29, in the latest fallout from the university's handling of an alleged gang-rape on campus. Under an agreement signed by the State Police and Cornell, sexual-offense complaints that would normally fall under the jurisdiction of campus police will instead be referred to state police for criminal investigation, unless the person making the complaint requests otherwise.

Source: Reuters

The October 29 agreement is effective immediately. Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff said it will remain in place during an outside review of the university's handling of sexual misconduct. The arrangement does not mean every report automatically becomes a criminal case, and it does not remove a survivor's choice about whether and how to involve law enforcement: Cornell said survivors may choose the State Police, Cornell University Police, the Ithaca Police Department or the Tompkins County Sheriff's Office. Under the deal, state investigators trained in trauma-informed interviewing - and organisationally independent of the university - can handle complaints that Cornell's own police would otherwise have investigated.

Source: Utica Phoenix, reporting Governor Hochul's statement and Cornell's response

The 2024 case behind the decision

The announcement follows widespread criticism of Cornell's conduct and questions about why no criminal charges were filed after a woman identified publicly only as Jane Doe said she was raped by members of a Cornell fraternity. In a civil lawsuit filed in September 2026, the former Cornell student alleges that several men sexually assaulted her after she consumed drugs at the Chi Phi fraternity house in October 2024. These are allegations in civil litigation: they have not been proven in court, no criminal charges had been announced as of October 29, and anyone accused is entitled to the presumption of innocence. Reuters reported that Cornell expelled or disciplined several of the students involved in the incident, but no criminal charges were filed.

The lawsuit triggered criticism from students, alumni and advocates in Ithaca, who called for greater transparency about how the university handles sexual-assault claims and whether campus systems are independent enough when the accused and the institution are connected.

Three separate tracks are now running

First, the new State Police referral agreement itself, which applies to future complaints from now on. Second, Governor Hochul previously named Attorney General Letitia James as a special prosecutor to reopen the criminal investigation into Jane Doe's complaint and conduct an independent review. Third, a committee of Cornell's board of trustees appointed former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates to conduct a review of the university's response to sexual-assault claims. The State Police arrangement will stay in place while that outside review runs, President Kotlikoff said.

What happens next

Cornell's Faculty Senate is moving forward with a vote of no confidence against the university administration: about 135 members of the governing body can vote on the non-binding resolution from Friday, October 30, until November 6, the Cornell Daily Sun reported. The resolution states that the Faculty Senate has no confidence in the ability of the central administration to effectively address the ongoing crisis of sexual assault at Cornell University. The vote is non-binding, but its result - alongside the Yates review and the Attorney General's reopened investigation - will decide how much of Cornell's leadership and campus-safety structure survives this crisis intact.

For students and families, the immediate change is practical: a sexual-offense complaint at Cornell now goes by default to investigators outside the university, trained in trauma-informed interviewing, while the person reporting keeps the right to choose a different agency or not to pursue a criminal route at all. For the many Punjabi and Indian families in New York and across North America who send their children to U.S. universities, the case is a closely watched test of whether a major university's own systems can be trusted when allegations involve its own students - and of what happens when a state government decides they cannot be left alone.