The woman who would come to be known as Jane Doe walked into her sorority house in a daze, feeling bruises starting to ache on her body. When her sorority sisters asked what had happened, she remembered responding with one word: “Ketamine.”
The recollection, detailed among more than 1,000 pages of Cornell University files obtained by The New York Times, underscores the central role played by the powerful anesthetic in an alleged gang rape that has spurred outrage and debate about sexual assault and consent on college campuses nationwide. The drug appeared time and again at a Chi Phi fraternity party in October 2024, according to the documents and a lawsuit filed by the former Cornell student who identified herself as Jane Doe.
She said she felt pressured by some fraternity members to take ketamine — her first time — before seven of them sexually assaulted her. All seven men have denied wrongdoing. In her interview with campus investigators, Jane Doe said a combination of drugs and alcohol made it impossible to consent. “Whenever the ketamine went down, I would say, is when things really start becoming a problem,” she told investigators. The witness statements allude to a drug culture where ketamine was easily accessible. “It was not hard to get your hands on it if you wanted it,” said Hasham Khan, a former fraternity member.
Source: New York Times Top Stories · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing