Recent events have once again catapulted the topic of sexual violence on college campuses back into the mainstream news cycle and brought with it renewed public scrutiny of how these cases are handled by the institutions where they occur. The details surrounding the alleged assault of Jane Doe at the hands of seven fraternity men, and the inaction of dozens more, are horrific and need not be recounted here. But going through Jane Doe’s complaint against Cornell, there is a notable absence of a particular claim against the University. The complaint brings claims against Cornell under five distinct causes of action: Negligence; Negligent Retention, Supervision, and/or Direction; Breach of Contract; Violation of New York State Human Rights Law; and Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress. What Jane Doe does not allege, however, is that Cornell violated her rights under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.
The decision not to bring a Title IX claim in this case could be explained simply by the lawyer’s choice of venue. It is entirely possible that the attorneys here felt that New York state courts would be a friendlier venue to these claims than a Federal District Court and chose to forgo a Title IX claim simply to avoid the federal system. However, there is an equally likely explanation for this decision; that the attorneys understood that it would be nearly impossible to prove a Title IX claim in this case.
For the past 25 years the standard for establishing civil liability for a violation of an individual’s Title IX rights is that the school acted with deliberate indifference to a report of student-on-student harassment or assault.[1] Deliberate indifference is a high bar and would require Doe to prove that Cornell’s response was clearly unreasonable in light of the circumstances.[2] According to Doe’s own filing, Cornell placed the accused students on interim suspension and suspended the fraternity the day Doe reported to the Title IX Office, they conducted a thorough investigation, convened a live hearing, and found the students responsible and issued suspensions and expulsions. With these facts, proving that Cornell’s actions were “clearly unreasonable” in response to Doe’s report would be exceedingly difficult. However, this case makes one thing perfectly clear: in the court of public opinion, “legally sufficient” is not enough.
The question now becomes: what lessons should schools be taking from what we know of this case so far? While by no means a comprehensive list there are a few key action items schools should be looking to implement, if they are not already, in light of Jane Doe’s complaint:
- Schools need to be tracking trends, not just individual cases. Are there locations, organizations, or groups that are disproportionately represented in reports that the school is receiving? What steps are being taken to ensure student safety within these spaces?
- There is an ongoing need for targeted training, particularly in traditionally masculine spaces like fraternities and men’s athletics. An annual sexual harassment online module is not sufficient; trainings should be tailored to the audience and used to call-in would-be allies. Bystander intervention training should be the bare minimum. If fraternity brothers and male athletes do not want to be associated with rape culture, then they need to feel responsible for holding one another accountable.
- Campus Police/Security need to be trained to explain the role they play on campus and within the broader community. Are they sworn officers? What is their relationship with the District Attorney (DA) and local law enforcement? Who receives copies of their reports? These questions and more need to be answered for reporters and it cannot be on them to know the right questions to ask.
- Title IX Intake officers need to be explaining ALL options to reporters, not just within the school but also external legal options. Moreover, these conversations need to be had in a way that does not intentionally or unintentionally dissuade the complainant from pursuing any particular option. It should also be made abundantly clear that choosing one option does not close the door to the other; school administrative procedures and a legal case can and must proceed simultaneously if that is what the complainant desires. If a complainant expresses interest in pursuing legal options, schools should be prepared to help with that hand-off and ease the burden on the complainant as much as possible. This means that Title IX officials need to identify ways to build and maintain relationships with local law enforcement and DA’s offices and to learn what their procedures entail.
- When a school feels that interim disciplinary action is necessary, there needs to be careful consideration of how threat assessments are conducted and how that process is communicated not only to the respondent but also to the complainant. This does not mean that respondents are being denied their right to challenge decisions around interim action, but the way it is managed should be thoughtful and well explained to all parties.
- Title IX Coordinators need to have the freedom and authority to implement effective supportive measures whenever necessary. This may require schools to develop procedures to evaluate requested supportive measures that would conflict with other institutional policies such as student refund policies, grade tracking policies, withdrawal policies, or others. The recommendations from the Title IX Coordinator should be given considerable deference in most of these cases and any decision and rational to deny a requested measure needs to be thoroughly documented.
[1] Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, 526 U.S. 629 (1999)
[2] Bernal v. Floresville Independent School District, No. 25-50629 (5th Cir., 2026)