In a parking lot next to Cornell University’s football stadium, dozens of students sipped beer, played cornhole and, at times, danced on the bed of a pickup truck on Saturday afternoon during a spirited but orderly homecoming tailgate party. By nightfall, few signs of the postgame revelry had spilled out onto the streets. Only a handful of students walked past the quiet Gothic revival and Tudor mansions that house fraternities, which were banned last week from having parties through the end of the academic year.
The stillness continued early Sunday, except for a few local haunts including Hideaway, a popular bar among undergraduates in the Collegetown neighborhood near campus in Ithaca, N.Y. Even there, the line to enter was only about 10 people at what would normally be its busiest hours. It was the first weekend since school administrators implemented the ban on parties at fraternity houses, a response to nationwide outrage over a sexual assault lawsuit filed last month by a former student.
The student, known as Jane Doe, accused seven members of Cornell’s Chi Phi chapter of sexually assaulting her at the now-shuttered fraternity house in 2024. The men have all denied wrongdoing, and none have been charged with a crime. Michael I. Kotlikoff, the president of Cornell, who announced the ban, acknowledged that Greek life has long been a draw for students, where about 3,000 undergraduates — a third of the undergraduate student body — belong to its more than 50 recognized fraternities or sororities.
On Thursday during his State of the University address, he told alumni that the fraternity system has "been part of Cornell since the beginning, and it’s brought an enormous amount of benefit to generations of Cornellians." But more and more in recent years, we’ve seen a disturbing culture emerge in some of these fraternities," Mr. Kotlikoff said during his speech. "We have to hit reset, and we have to do it now, with measures that will keep our students safe."
Source: New York Times Top Stories · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing