The woman says she was drugged and sexually assaulted at a fraternity house on Cornell's campus. Her lawsuit accuses the university of failing to protect her and names the seven male students she alleges took part in the attack.
The case sat uninvestigated for months before the lawsuit brought new attention to it. NPR's Brian Mann is covering the story, which centers on why a 2024 allegation is only now drawing a formal criminal probe.
The lawsuit raises hard questions about how Cornell responded when she first came forward, and whether the university's Greek life system did enough to prevent the alleged assault or protect her afterward. It also did what her initial police report apparently could not. The seven men named in her suit now face both a civil case and a reopened criminal inquiry, a rare double track that puts pressure on prosecutors to explain the year-plus gap.