How Student Journalists Broke the ‘Cornell Seven’ Case

Students at The Cornell Daily Sun have been there covering every beat of the story. Senior editor Cereese Qusba spent months reporting on the case before breaking the news of the lawsuit on September 18. “What happened to me was horrific and deeply disturbing,” the plaintiff, who is only identified in court records as Jane Doe, told the Sun exclusively. “Almost two years later, I still carry the weight of its impact every day and night.”

For the past two weeks, reporters at the student paper have been relentlessly chasing follow-ups, from the administration’s response to the district attorney’s office reopening its criminal investigation and the larger fallout in Ithaca. The Sun also published a blistering editorial, printing the names of the accused men and taking the university to task for its lack of transparency. Throughout it all, the team has approached this case with care and moral clarity.

“We refuse for this victim to be reduced to just another story. Cornell has failed to protect its students. Cornell has failed to address the growing issue of sexual assault on campus with its pathetic task force,” the board wrote. “Cornell has failed the student allegedly raped by those seven men at Chi Phi in October 2024. Cornell has failed her. Cornell has failed us.”

On Monday afternoon, I called up Qusba and editor-in-chief Sophia Dasser to talk about their work, how the editorial came together, and what’s next in their reporting.

Can you start by talking a bit about the reporting process? How did you learn about the lawsuit and what kind of questions did you feel the Cornell community needed answers for?
Cereese Qusba: In the fall of 2024 the university and the Cornell University Police Department came out with a statement initially saying that there was a sexual assault reported at the Chi Phi house. That was definitely a very dark time on campus. Students were asking the university for transparency and for answers.

It had been over a year since that happened and I started to look into this case because I thought it was something really important and worthy of reporting, that it should not get missed at all. I was able to get into contact with Jane Doe. I spoke with her and her lawyers a few times. I was able to do background investigative research on Cornell’s policy and have gathered as much information as I could so that, when the lawsuit dropped, we were well prepared to break the story.

What was the student-body reaction to the news?
C.Q.: It’s been very similar to what we felt in the fall of 2024 — just kind of a heaviness around the student body. It’s a widely spoken-about issue here on campus, and it has definitely affected the student body a lot as the story picks up and people get more information on the case and the surrounding issues around university transparency.

Sophia Dasser: Ever since we’ve posted the secondary coverage as well as the editorial, there’s been an absolute outpour of similar stories hitting my inbox and the sexual-misconduct tip line. There are also the ones that really relay a sense of kinship, solidarity, and relatability to the Jane Doe account. The response has been widespread and really multifaceted. There is this shock and outrage that this culture still permeates. This has definitely been a theme in the responses I’ve received from older members of the community who are shocked that a culture that they had experienced possibly decades ago still permeates.

There’s also this underlying emotion because individuals are not really surprised about the lack of transparency, but they are still outraged that they haven’t received any contact from the university for the last two years on the case besides the public lawsuit.

How would you say this case fits within Cornell’s systemic challenges when it comes to addressing sexual violence on campus? 
S.D.: I think the university attempted to respond after the Chi Phi incident. About four months later, they sent out a statement regarding a Sexual Assault Task Force that they had created in order to really confront the issues of sexual misconduct on campus. However, with deeper research, you’ll find that this task force really approaches sexual assault and misconduct as an educational problem rather than safety issue. We as the editorial committee believe that that’s a fundamentally incorrect perspective. A lot of people found that really contradicting with the nature of sexual assault, like the fact that the alleged assaulters were assigned essays as a part of their punishment.

When you search the task force’s website you see that what they’re doing is classes, workshops, and website links. It’s pretty easy to assume that those who would often commit the sexual assault will most likely not be the ones attending the voluntary and optional sexual-assault workshops. Within the editorial committee, we feel that sexual misconduct cannot be solved in the same way that we try to attempt to solve plagiarism. These are very fundamentally different issues.

Can you tell me about how the editorial came together? 
S.D.: We really went through different questions. What was the crux of the issue? Is it the fact that this happened at all? Is it the university’s response? Is it the alleged individuals involved? At the end of the day, we settled on the fact that, as student journalists, our responsibility to the campus community is shining light on the opaque parts, on the dark corners of Cornell. This is a perfect example of that, so we wanted to focus specifically on the lack of transparency. The outrage was really sourced in the fact that no one knew what was going on for 23 months.

We made some bold decisions — we listed the seven civil defendants on our front page and also as the first line of the editorial. We also took a very confrontational approach to the university’s process and lack of transparency. For example, we quote Marla Love, the task force’s co-lead and dean of students, saying that “the charge was never for us to solve the problem” [of sexual assault on campus]. But we already have seen evidence of a 4 percent increase in “nonconsensual sexual contact” among students since 2023.

With all this in mind, the editorial committee fixated on this contradiction of transparency and consent, what the university and the student body deserves to know, what they can know given federal privacy laws, which we obviously understand, and how we can really shine light on what we believe was a really major issue that Cornell should not be sweeping under the rug.

Sweeping it under the rug is no longer an option given the lawsuit has drawn nationwide attention. How did it feel to see the story break through like that?
C.Q.: At one point, it was a very small circle of people who knew that this lawsuit was being filed. I had to be prepared to write that story, which is obviously about a very heavy topic. But to do it and then to watch social media and all media really take the story and kind of run with it … It’s been really interesting to watch the media do its thing. Now, I’m getting flyers for protests and “The Cornell Seven” as a subject line in my inbox.

I’ve been covering gender-violence for a decade and it truly feels like we’ve seen a version of the story about sexual violence on campus over and over again — the Brock Turner case happened a decade ago, for example. Why do you think this particular lawsuit and your reporting has grabbed the attention of the nation?
C.Q.: There was no sugarcoating in that article. Most details were included even if they were graphic or uncomfortable. I think it made a really big statement. To read the details of this alleged sexual assault was jarring for a lot of people and made a really big impact on them.

Our reporting is also bringing to light that this is not an isolated incident and that people have experienced similar things in Greek life, whether at Cornell or other universities. Our coverage was absolutely completely raw from the lawsuit and nothing was concealed. At a minimum, that’s what we can do as the student newspaper.

S.D.: I agree. I think that a lot of the reaction to the story is a result of our refusal to censor both our original news publications and our editorial.

What’s next in your reporting? What kind of questions does the Sun still have for the administration and local law enforcement? 
C.Q.: We’re continuing to look at policies and procedures. There’s also so much to look into in terms of the university and their role as well as how Cornell, local law enforcement, CUPD, and the district attorney’s office all work together to make and enforce these decisions.

S.D.: We are also launching another campaign requesting that donors, alum, prospective students, parents, and anyone tied to the Cornell community shares their perspective on what’s going on on campus. We’re really interested in seeing how this ties with how the university is perceived by the rest of the country, and how that’s changed following the lawsuit and our coverage. Many alumni are publicly saying that they are unwilling to donate to Cornell. Prospective applicants who are women are saying, “I’m unwilling to apply to Cornell now.”

At the Sun, we really focus on being an archive of campus. We want to make sure that we are really documenting the energy and the Zeitgeist of campus through this campaign.

C.Q.: I hope our reporting sheds light on issues that are otherwise not being reported as they probably should be. There will be a lot more Sun coverage on this issue. You should expect some articles in the next couple of days.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.