The lawsuit was filed in September by an anonymous woman identified as Jane Doe over an incident alleged to have occurred at a Chi Phi party on the night of October 19, 2024. Her sorority, Delta Delta Delta, and Cornell University are also named as co-defendants.
In the complaint, Doe argues she encountered a "glorified, yet materially false and misleading" facade for Greek life upon arriving at Cornell. The university, she claims, actively promoted Greek membership as a "vital" part of the campus community and endorsed the organisations as "well-managed, worthy pathways to new friendships and improving one's educational and professional opportunities." Instead, the complaint alleges, the fraternities perpetuated a pattern of sexual assault and abuse.
Critics argue that some fraternities leverage their exclusivity to encourage and normalise violence, dangling social acceptance as a reward for compliance. Anthropologist Aldo Cimino, a Kent State University professor who studies fraternity hazing, said: "This isn't [some sort of] a hobbyist club. It is the seriousness of the affiliation that has generated the intensity of these induction rituals."
Fraternities trace their origins to Phi Beta Kappa, founded at the College of William and Mary in 1776 as a secret society for debate and scholarly exchange. Its adoption of the Greek alphabet, oath of secrecy and arcane membership rites established a blueprint for later groups. The organisations are now part of a multibillion-dollar industry: the North American Interfraternity Conference (NIC) represents 58 fraternities across 600 schools, claiming nearly 200,000 active undergraduate members and an alumni population of 4.2 million. More than 40 percent of US presidents were fraternity members.
Related coverage by Al Jazeera indicates the case has also renewed a push to change New York's sexual assault law, and that controversy has erupted over the punishment of the defendants, dubbed the "Cornell 7".