Cornell University on Tuesday named a former top US prosecutor to assess the elite college's handling of an alleged 2024 gang rape of a student that has provoked national outrage. The incident, as alleged in a graphic lawsuit filed last month, has drawn accusations that the Ivy League institution in New York state failed to properly punish the men involved. Cornell said that Sally Yates, who served as deputy US attorney general from 2015 to 2017 and briefly led the Justice Department, would conduct a "detailed review" of the university's response to the rape allegations. The accuser, referred to as Jane Doe, has claimed she was "pressured... into snorting" ketamine, assaulted and raped by seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity, a social club for male students. Following her initial allegations in 2024, Cornell shut down the fraternity and temporarily suspended the accused male students, two of whom were later expelled. But critics have said the university's response was too lenient, prompting it to launch an independent review. "It is imperative that Cornell be willing to examine itself with the same rigour we expect of others," Anne Meinig Smalling, chair of the university's board of trustees, said in a statement. "We want to understand not just what...
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