‘It’s a very dark time’: inside Cornell’s surreal homecoming weekend

Worlds are colliding at Cornell. On the football field, the men’s varsity team is practicing for its homecoming game, the flagship event of their season. Players are fine-tuning routes and dapping each other up after a well-executed play. The school mascot dances past, a seven-foot bear pumping its paws in the air, and alumni groups mingle in a neighboring parking lot. Open a Cornell brochure: this is what homecoming looks like.

But here’s what it sounds like: clanging cowbells, and angry yells, and the sudden blares of a police siren. A few feet beyond the football field, student protesters are locking eyes with cops across a makeshift barrier, screaming at the officers from three feet away. The crowd swells and placards bounce up and down, the noise and fury drifting to the football field and through campus.

It’s been a month since Cornell was rocked by a lawsuit , filed by a former student identified as Jane Doe in legal documents, alleging she was drugged and gang raped at a Chi Phi frat house in 2024. The ensuing scandal, and a reopened criminal investigation, have ruptured the feeling of serenity that this remote, idyllic campus provides. Little has felt normal since.

Heather Ainsworth/CNN

Suddenly, these students are part of one of the biggest stories in the nation, and it’s taking a toll.

“You can feel it all the time: the tension,” says Harrison Beckwith, a sophomore on the student committee that canceled this year’s homecoming concert after its headline act pulled out. “In all my classes, you just feel a lot of sadness. A lot of uncertainty everywhere. Anger.”

It is a surreal time here. An entire population of students has suddenly found itself under a national microscope. Many are tired of the scrutiny, and it’s easy to understand why. They expected much of college to be fun, and none of this is fun.

But there are bigger forces at play; an entire system is under inspection too, and on that, students here are sharply divided. Many are fired up, hoping to seize this rare moment of outrage to change the way this centuries-old institution works. Nearly everyone is weary of the continued media presence on campus. Fraternities, silenced for now by a university ban on parties at frat houses, are nervously watching each other’s actions, aware that one wrong move could doom Greek life here for good.

And amid it all, a homecoming weekend. The university has tried to make the event look and feel like it does on pamphlets. It hasn’t worked: the undercurrent of anger and suspicion is everywhere. For this story CNN spoke to dozens of students, alumni and faculty members on campus this weekend, many of whom requested anonymity to avoid angering their fraternities, sororities or colleagues.

“It’s rough,” says Natalie, a senior who asked CNN not to publish her last name, about the feeling on campus. “A lot of people are getting fingers pointed at them.” The school, she says, is “punishing victims and students instead of targeting what needs to be targeted.”

“A lot of us care deeply about making a better environment and community,” she says – but she knows that change won’t come easily. “This isn’t the first time this has happened. It’s not going to be the last.”

Late last month, when Doe’s lawsuit first spurred national outrage, Beckwith and his friend Gustavo Ponzoa realized they had a problem.

The two sophomores said they had spent months working to arrange Cornell’s annual homecoming concert, a fixture of the school’s social calendar. They estimate 1,500 students attended last year. But both of their phones were blowing up from inside and outside Cornell, and they predicted the email several days before it arrived: Between Friends, the headline act, was pulling out.

This isn’t the Cornell that Beckwith arrived at last year: he was happy to be at that one. “You feel a lot of pride, a lot of excitement,” he says, recalling his first weeks on campus. Those feelings changed when he read Jane Doe’s complaint, especially the vulgar messages sent by a fraternity member about “free p***y” in the house. It left both men disgusted and ashamed of their school. “Every step of the way, there was a failure,” says Beckwith.

New York’s governor has since appointed state Attorney General Letitia James to re-examine the case, and Cornell has retained former US Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates to review how the school “prevents and responds to sexual harassment, sexual assault and related misconduct on campus.”

“There’s definitely a notable change in the atmosphere,” Beckwith says. “You don’t feel pride …you almost feel betrayed.” The past month, Beckwith says, “was a revelation.” He didn’t believe the actions alleged by Doe could take place at Cornell – but now, he says, he realizes that behavior is “among us.”

“It makes you so much more paranoid and distrustful of other people.”

Ponzoa chimes in, describing it as a “super gloomy” few weeks. “Every single day – even going to class felt rough.”

And now, the Ivy League school these young men strived to attend is one that seemingly no one wants to be associated with. “The next (concert) is straight up not happening. Who are we going to book?” asks Ponzoa. “Artists are worried about their safety (and) their brands.” He’s already heard “no’s” from musicians who were previously lined up, he says. “I don’t blame them. I would do the same.”

The canceled gigs include what would have been a celebratory 50th anniversary of a legendary Grateful Dead show at Cornell’s Barton Hall, a milestone in the histories of both the band and the school. Beckwith and Ponzoa both note that these are minor inconveniences in the face of much more serious issues. But they serve as reminders of just how far Cornell’s reputation has fallen.

Instead, the pair are looking to other pages of music history for inspiration. They are working to organize a show, featuring Cornell’s own student musicians, to raise money for the anti-sexual assault nonprofit RAINN. “There’s been so many instances of musicians fighting for what’s right, through concerts,” says Ponzoa – citing Joan Baez and the Live Aid concert among his lofty examples. “We want to be a part of that history.”

There are snippets of normalcy this weekend, if you look for them. Alumni receptions take place on campus, and Ithaca’s steakhouses and upmarket restaurants are booked through the night. In the Cornell store, Vickie Sparks cradles a pile of merch, including a mug reading “Cornell Mom,” her bashful son, a recent Mathematics graduate, in tow.

“I was conflicted about coming back,” says Sparks, from Berea, Kentucky. “I didn’t know how well we would be received. I didn’t know how comfortable I would be wearing my Cornell gear.” But their trip had been booked for a year, and “This horrible thing that has transpired was not going to make me change my plans,” she says. “We can’t let an incident, as bad and horrible as this was, be the only thing that Cornell is known for.”

But right now, it’s the only thing many people are thinking about.

For many of Cornell’s female students, the events of the past month haven’t just been traumatizing: they’ve been re-traumatizing. They remember the gossip two years earlier, when they were freshmen or sophomores, that something awful had happened at the Chi Phi house. Cornell is a large university, but when rumor spreads, any school can become a small town.

“I was on campus when it happened,” says Natalie, the senior. “You assume that the admin’s going to do something about it and support the student that needs support. Instead, we hear about it two years later, and nothing has been really done.”

“How do you know where to go from there?”

She talks while selling baklava in the foyer of the student union. Above her head and all around her is an elaborate mural, painted a century ago to depict the character traits of noble men. In Latin, an inscription translates to: “Nothing in the realm of men is alien to me.”

“Every woman on campus definitely has been a victim (of sexual assault or harassment), or has a friend who needed support,” Natalie says. She adds that she has friends who have filed complaints through Title IX, the federal civil rights law prohibiting gender-based discrimination, that have gone nowhere .

“It’s systemic, and it’s not gonna change overnight,” she says. But like so many students here, she is angry at the school’s leadership, and its embattled president, Michael Kotlikoff. “I don’t know if I trust anything that they’re doing,” she says.

“We understand why members of our community are asking questions about the university’s response in 2024, particularly in light of the deeply troubling allegations that have now become public,” Cornell told CNN in a statement Sunday. “Cornell took the reports very seriously and moved promptly to initiate its Title IX process. The university conducted an extensive investigation and adjudication over several months and imposed different sanctions based on the findings and circumstances involving each student.”

Two of the students named in Doe’s complaint were expelled, while others received lesser punishments. Two students, including one who was found responsible for entering the room where Doe was allegedly assaulted but not attacking her, were punished with directed study and writing reflection essays.

Outside, as gray clouds unleash a torrent of rain, a protest begins to form. These have been near-daily exhibitions of anger and frustration. Beneath umbrellas, attendees join a call and response: “There are no excuses!” and “No cover-up, no lies!” and “Ban the frats!”

“There’s a lot of anger,” says Gabe Sekeres, a doctoral student at Cornell, of the protest that he helped organize. “This is something that has been brewing for a number of years.”

“It was so clear from those messages that these men in Chi Phi felt as though (Jane Doe) was not a human. They truly dehumanized her,” he says. “It’s something that is endemic in fraternity culture. The university tells them that they are better than everyone else. They give a lot of money. They bring in a lot of money for the university. And as a result, they get to act with impunity.”

The Chi Phi national fraternity has condemned the alleged assault, saying it took actions in 2024 that “went beyond anything the law or Cornell University required of us.” Cornell shut down Chi Phi in 2024, and the fraternity is still prohibited from operating on campus.

Sekeres has long questioned the purpose of Greek life, a system he considers elitism and exclusionary. And now, he sees an opportunity to end it.

His protest swells to several dozen people and then takes off across campus, the attendees marching and clanging cowbells as they go. Eventually, university police contain the group behind a barrier and stand sullenly as protesters direct their angst towards officers.

Eeshaan Chaudhuri didn’t prepare for this. When he ran for president of the student assembly, he gave speeches to half-empty rooms about dining policies and the lack of free parking at the student health center.

“If you were to ask me, even a month and a half ago, what I thought my senior year would look like, I wouldn’t say it would (involve) speaking to CNN.”

But Chaudhuri, dressed in a charcoal suit and blessed with a politician’s ability to filibuster, could easily pass as a first-time candidate for a state legislature seat. He’s a bridge between students and the Cornell administration, and it’s difficult to imagine a time when that relationship has been more strained.

“The student body’s upset,” he says. “Sexual violence is a huge problem here at Cornell. And what (the) admin is doing right now to combat it is clearly not enough.”

Chaudhuri’s parents emigrated from India to the East Coast. His father had hoped to go to Cornell himself, and Chaudhuri lights up when he describes the moment he told his parents of his acceptance to the school. “I was able to achieve something my dad couldn’t do,” he says. “It’s been very humbling.”

But when he talks about his role today, his exhaustion is obvious. “I haven’t been to class in three weeks,” he admits: he has a mountain of homework waiting for him tonight, and his lecturers’ patience is wearing thin.

We meet in the backroom at Collegetown Bagels, a lively bakery-turned-bar that doubles as the go-to meeting spot for many undergrads. He knows that the life of everyone around him has been impacted, too.

“There are students here on campus that just want to be normal students. They want to go to class without having the media filming them. They didn’t ask for any of this when they applied to Cornell in the first place.”

But the exhaustion and the anger live side by side, and many students are directing their fury towards Kotlikoff, who last week said he was “deeply sorry for the harm Jane Doe suffered in 2024” and announced a range of new measures to increase security and support on campus.

He has resisted calls to resign.

Asked whether he supports those calls, Chaudhuri takes a beat for the first time, mentally sifting through the complicated realities of his role. “I wouldn’t be comfortable commenting on that at the moment,” he says at first. Then he admits that “Eeshaan, as a student, would call for the president to resign … absolutely.”

But Eeshaan the student politician isn’t so sure: a transition would slow down policy changes, he warns, and the problem is deeper than one man.

“I don’t think replacing the president of the university stops sexual violence,” he says.

It’s nighttime, and the frat houses are dark. At Delta Kappa Epsilon, in the parking lot, a group of guys underdressed for the cold are playing a three-on-three football scrimmage. “Kill, kill, kill,” they yell into the cool air. Nearby, EDM blares from another frat house, in spite of the tension around parties. Silhouetted figures are visible through the windows, and rowdy conversation bleeds through the walls.

And across the road, at the foot of a cobblestoned hill that cars sigh and grumble as they traverse, is the empty Chi Phi house. Students, walking heavy-footed down the slope, throw the occasional glance at its windows. This is Cornell’s grimmest new landmark.

What happened inside that Tudor-style building in October 2024 is the subject of a civil complaint and now a fresh criminal investigation. The house has sat vacant since Cornell concluded its own Title IX investigation and shuttered the frat. But it remains a monument to a swelling movement against the closed-door nature of many Greek institutions.

Some feel that movement has gone too far. Sienna, a sorority sister who asked CNN not to publish her last name, is one of few students willing to provide a partial defense of the seven students named in Doe’s complaint.

“I think that they were bad apples in a bunch,” she says. But the case is “revealing another issue with the American public,” she adds: “We’re morally determining their guilt. It’s ‘innocent until proven guilty,’ and that’s not what’s happened here.”

In her sorority, the mood has been “glum.” She says many freshmen and sophomores are wondering: “This (alleged rape) happened two years ago. Why is this (scandal) happening now?”

“We don’t want negative backlash. We don’t want to be identified, and blasted all over TikTok,” she says. Greek life, she says, is supposed to be “a positive experience for everybody. That’s why we pay thousands of dollars to be a part of it.”

Now, she walks to her sorority building past protests calling for Greek life to be shut down.

“They’re misunderstanding the way college life functions,” she argues. “If Greek life got banned, these boys – they’re not going away. If there’s a lot of horse deaths happening, are you gonna be like, ‘ban horse stables’?’”

“The issue is truly not frats,” Sienna says. “It’s just bad men.”

But according to many on campus, the issue is far more than that. They say a structure of secrecy operates within frats that protects bad behavior. That is a pattern that a frat member at Cornell, who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity, says he recognizes.

“Although it can be hurtful to hear people chanting ‘f**k the frats,’ I completely understand where their anger is coming from,” he says. “There definitely are problems with Greek life.”

“Everyone at elite institutions has the tendency to protect people in their circle,” he says. “Whatever happened in that house, the brothers were openly acting terribly, with so much malice, and I feel like if there was more public scrutiny, they would never have had the ability to commit the terrible things that they did.”

He feels the ban on frat parties is fair, and he’s willing to abide by it. But he’s not so sure about everyone else.

“I definitely have some concerns that other houses will not follow the rules, and essentially get Greek life banned on campus,” he says. Asked if someone, eventually, will slip up, the brother is unequivocal. “Oh, absolutely.”

Still, not everyone welcomes more scrutiny. Sienna argues there is a “good amount of oversight occurring” at frat and sorority houses. “It’s like, how much more oversight do you want on a college campus?” she asks. “At the end of the day, we’re teenagers and 21-year-olds … it’s not a secret that we wanna have fun.”

On Saturday, the chill rolls in. Winter here can be brutal, and this is its warning shot.

The mood on campus feels tense. Saturday is typically the biggest day of homecoming weekend, but today’s agenda is stripped down. Fraternities, which would usually throw crammed street parties in Ithaca’s Collegetown neighborhood, have been denied event permits by the city and urged instead to tailgate in the parking lot outside the 111-year-old Schoellkopf Field, surrounded by university police.

Already, fevered speculation has spread. A lengthy message, posted to the anonymous student message board app Sidechat, has gone viral: it warns that Cornell’s leadership has given frats one last chance, but “one f**kup from any chapter and it is likely Greek life is gone for good.” (A fraternity president confirmed that the message was an accurate summation of the university’s position).

It’s a triumphant day on the football field, where Cornell beats undefeated Lehigh in an upset. But most fraternity brothers aren’t watching. They’re back in Collegetown, filling the streets despite the ban on public events. For a few minutes, it looks like a normal celebration, at a normal time: students are drinking and laughing. And then the police wade in to shut down the gathering. The crowds, so full of defiance and angst a moment ago, disperse in minutes.

Many just wanted to have fun. But instead, a reckoning has split Cornell’s students.

“The frats hold a lot of power,” Ponzoa tells CNN. “Greek life has a big place here.” Cornell’s protesters allege that power has remained unchecked for years.

But now, the power may be shifting.

For weeks, Beckwith has felt little pride in his university. But then, after the shock of the complaint wore off, he started to find it in new places.

“I see so many students, at the protest, at the (student paper) Cornell Daily Sun, who are rising up, standing up and advocating. That’s inspiring to see,” he says.

“It’s a very dark time,” he admits. “But you see so much hope.”

康奈尔大学里，各种景象交织在一起。在橄榄球场上，男子校队正在为返校节比赛进行训练，这是他们赛季的重头戏。队员们正在仔细练习跑位，并在一次精彩的配合后互相击掌庆祝。学校的吉祥物——一头七英尺高的熊——欢快地走过，爪子高高举起；校友们则在附近的停车场里聚会交流。翻开康奈尔大学的宣传册：这就是返校节的盛况。

但实际情况却是这样的：叮当作响的牛铃声、愤怒的叫喊声，以及突然响起的警笛声。在足球场外几英尺的地方，学生抗议者隔着临时路障与警察对视，近在咫尺地对着警察大声喊叫。人群越聚越多，标语牌上下晃动，喧嚣和愤怒的情绪蔓延到足球场，席卷整个校园。

康奈尔大学被一起诉讼震惊已过去一个月。这起诉讼由一名化名简·多伊的前学生提起，她声称自己于2024年在奇菲兄弟会（Chi Phi fras）的宿舍内被下药并遭到轮奸。随之而来的丑闻以及重启的刑事调查，打破了这座偏远宁静的校园原本的祥和氛围。自此之后，一切都变得不再正常。

Heather Ainsworth/CNN

突然之间，这些学生成为了全国最重大新闻事件之一的主角，这给他们带来了沉重的打击。

“你总能感受到那种紧张气氛，”哈里森·贝克威斯说道。他是学生委员会的成员，该委员会取消了今年的返校节音乐会，因为原定的压轴嘉宾退出了。“在我的所有课堂上，你都能感受到浓浓的悲伤。到处都弥漫着不确定感。还有愤怒。”

现在的一切都显得那么不真实。所有学生突然间都成了全国关注的焦点。许多人已经厌倦了这种审视，这也不难理解。他们原本期待大学生活充满乐趣，而现在这一切都与乐趣背道而驰。

但还有更大的力量在起作用；整个系统也正接受审查，对此，这里的学生们意见分歧严重。许多人热情高涨，希望抓住这难得的愤怒时刻，改变这所拥有数百年历史的学府的运作方式。几乎每个人都对媒体持续在校园的出现感到厌倦。由于大学禁止在兄弟会会所举办派对，兄弟会暂时噤声，他们正紧张地观察着彼此的动向，因为他们知道，任何一个错误的举动都可能彻底断送这里的兄弟会生活。

而这一切之中，还夹杂着返校节周末。学校试图让活动看起来和宣传册上描述的一样，但事与愿违：愤怒和猜疑的暗流无处不在。为了撰写这篇报道，CNN本周末在校园里采访了数十名学生、校友和教职员工，其中许多人要求匿名，以免得罪他们的兄弟会、姐妹会或同事。

“情况很糟糕，”娜塔莉说道。她是一名大四学生，要求CNN不要透露她的姓氏。她谈到校园里的这种氛围时说：“很多人都成了众矢之的。” 她说，学校“惩罚受害者和学生，而不是去解决真正需要解决的问题。”

“我们很多人都非常关心如何创造更美好的环境和社区，”她说——但她也知道改变不会轻易发生。“这并非第一次发生这样的事，也绝不会是最后一次。”

上个月底，当 Doe 的诉讼首次引发全国公愤时，贝克威斯和他的朋友古斯塔沃·庞佐亚意识到他们遇到了麻烦。

这两位大二学生表示，他们花了几个月的时间筹备康奈尔大学一年一度的返校节音乐会，这是学校社交活动的重要组成部分。他们估计去年有1500名学生参加。但他们的手机却响个不停，来自康奈尔大学内外的电话都打爆了。几天前，他们就预料到了那封邮件：主打乐队“Between Friends”要取消演出了。

这已经不是贝克威斯去年刚到康奈尔大学时的样子了：那时他很高兴能来到这里。“你会感到无比自豪，无比兴奋，”他回忆起刚到校园的那几周时说道。但当他读到简·多伊的投诉后，尤其是看到兄弟会成员发来的关于宿舍里“免费性服务”的粗俗信息时，这些感觉都变了。这让两人都感到恶心，也为自己的学校感到羞耻。“每一步都以失败告终，”贝克威斯说道。

纽约州州长已任命州检察长莱蒂西亚·詹姆斯重新审查此案，康奈尔大学也聘请了前美国副司法部长萨莉·Q·耶茨来审查该校“如何预防和应对校园内的性骚扰、性侵犯和相关不当行为”。

贝克威斯说：“气氛确实发生了显著变化。你不再感到自豪……你几乎感觉被背叛了。” 贝克威斯说，过去一个月“让他大开眼界”。他原本不相信约翰·多伊指控的那些行为会在康奈尔发生——但现在，他说，他意识到这种行为“就在我们身边”。

“这会让你变得更加多疑，更加不信任他人。”

庞佐亚插话说，这几周“极其阴郁”。“每一天——甚至去上课都感觉很艰难。”

而如今，这些年轻人梦寐以求的常春藤盟校，似乎成了无人问津的避风港。“下一场（演唱会）肯定办不成了。我们还能请谁来呢？”庞佐亚问道。“艺人们担心自身安全和个人品牌形象。”他说，他已经收到一些之前预定的音乐家的拒绝。“我不怪他们。换作是我，我也会这么做。”

被取消的演出中包括原定在康奈尔大学巴顿音乐厅举行的传奇乐队“感恩而死”（Grateful Dead）五十周年纪念演出，这场演出对乐队和康奈尔大学而言都是一个里程碑。贝克威斯和庞佐亚都指出，与更严重的问题相比，这些只是些微不足道的麻烦。但它们也提醒人们，康奈尔大学的声誉已经跌落到何种地步。

相反，他们正从音乐史的其他篇章中汲取灵感。他们正努力筹办一场演出，由康奈尔大学的学生音乐家们参与，旨在为反性侵犯非营利组织RAINN筹款。“历史上有很多音乐家通过音乐会为正义发声的例子，”庞佐亚说道，并以琼·贝兹和“拯救生命”演唱会为例。“我们想成为这段历史的一部分。”

这个周末，如果你仔细观察，还是能发现一些正常生活的片段。校友招待会在校园里举行，伊萨卡的牛排馆和高档餐厅整晚都爆满。在康奈尔商店里，维姬·斯帕克斯抱着一堆纪念品，其中一个马克杯上写着“康奈尔妈妈”，她腼腆的儿子——一位刚从数学系毕业的学生——跟在她身后。

“我当时很纠结要不要回来，”来自肯塔基州贝里亚的斯帕克斯说，“我不知道我们会受到怎样的欢迎，也不知道穿上康奈尔的衣服会不会自在。” 但她们的行程已经预定了一年，“这件可怕的事情不会让我改变计划，”她说，“我们不能让这件糟糕透顶的事件成为康奈尔唯一的标志。”

但现在，这是很多人唯一在想的事情。

对康奈尔大学的许多女学生来说，过去一个月发生的事情不仅令人痛苦，更造成了二次创伤。她们还记得两年前，当她们还是大一或大二学生时，关于奇菲兄弟会宿舍发生可怕事件的传闻。康奈尔大学是一所规模庞大的大学，但谣言一旦传播开来，任何学校都可能变成一座小镇。

“事发时我就在校园里，”大四学生娜塔莉说。“你会以为校方会采取行动，帮助需要帮助的学生。然而，两年后我们才听说这件事，但实际上什么都没做。”

“你怎么知道接下来该往哪里走？”

她一边在学生会大厅卖果仁蜜饼，一边和人聊天。在她头顶和四周，是一幅精美的壁画，绘制于一个世纪前，描绘了贵族的品格。壁画上的拉丁文铭文翻译过来是：“凡事皆为我所熟悉。”

“校园里的每个女生肯定都曾是（性侵或性骚扰的）受害者，或者至少有朋友需要帮助，”娜塔莉说。她还补充道，她的一些朋友曾根据联邦民权法第九条（禁止性别歧视）提出申诉，但都石沉大海。

“这是系统性问题，不可能一夜之间改变，”她说。但和这里很多学生一样，她对学校领导层，尤其是处境艰难的校长迈克尔·科特利科夫感到愤怒。“我不知道我是否应该相信他们所做的一切，”她说。

康奈尔大学周日向CNN发表声明称：“我们理解社区成员为何对学校在2024年的应对措施提出疑问，尤其是在这些令人深感不安的指控公之于众之后。康奈尔大学非常重视这些报道，并迅速启动了第九条修正案程序。学校进行了数月的广泛调查和裁决，并根据调查结果和每位学生的具体情况施加了不同的处罚。”

在Doe的投诉中提到的两名学生被开除，其他学生则受到较轻的处罚。两名学生，其中一人被认定进入了Doe据称遭到袭击的房间，但并未对她实施攻击，被处以指导性学习和撰写反思文章的处罚。

外面，灰蒙蒙的乌云倾盆而下，一场抗议活动开始酝酿。这几乎每天都是表达愤怒和不满的场合。人们撑着伞，齐声高喊：“没有任何借口！”“不掩盖真相，不撒谎！”“取缔兄弟会！”

“人们非常愤怒，”康奈尔大学博士生加布·塞克雷斯谈到他参与组织的抗议活动时说，“这件事已经酝酿多年了。”

“从那些信息中可以明显看出，Chi Phi兄弟会的这些成员认为（简·多伊）不是人。他们完全剥夺了她的人性，”他说。“这在兄弟会文化中根深蒂固。学校告诉他们，他们比其他人都优越。他们捐了很多钱，为学校带来了很多收入。因此，他们可以肆无忌惮地行事。”

Chi Phi 全国兄弟会谴责了这起涉嫌袭击事件，并表示其在 2024 年采取的行动“远远超出了法律或康奈尔大学对我们的要求”。康奈尔大学于 2024 年关闭了 Chi Phi 兄弟会，该兄弟会至今仍被禁止在校园内活动。

塞克雷斯长期以来一直质疑兄弟会/姐妹会生活的意义，他认为这是一种精英主义和排外的制度。而现在，他看到了终结这种制度的机会。

他的抗议活动迅速扩大到几十人，随后蔓延到整个校园，参与者们边走边摇铃铛。最终，大学警察用路障将人群控制住，并冷冷地站在一旁，看着抗议者们将怒火发泄在警察身上。

伊沙安·乔杜里对此毫无准备。他竞选学生会主席时，对着半空的会场发表演讲，内容是关于餐饮政策和学生健康中心缺乏免费停车位等问题。

“如果一个半月前你问我，我对大学最后一年的设想是什么，我肯定不会说我会接受 CNN 的采访。”

但身着炭灰色西装、具备政客般滔滔不绝的演讲技巧的乔杜里，很容易让人误以为他是第一次竞选州议员。他是学生与康奈尔大学校方之间的桥梁，而很难想象还有比现在更紧张的时期。

“学生们都很愤怒，”他说。“性暴力在康奈尔大学是一个非常严重的问题。而校方目前采取的应对措施显然远远不够。”

乔杜里的父母从印度移民到美国东海岸。他的父亲曾希望自己能考入康奈尔大学，乔杜里在描述自己告诉父母被录取的那一刻时，脸上洋溢着兴奋的光芒。“我做到了我父亲没能做到的事，”他说，“这让我感到非常荣幸。”

但如今谈及自己的工作，他疲惫不堪的程度显而易见。“我已经三个星期没去上课了，”他坦言：今晚他还有一大堆作业等着他，老师们的耐心也快要耗尽了。

我们在大学城贝果店的后屋见面，这家热闹的面包店现在改成了酒吧，是许多大学生的热门聚会场所。他也知道，他周围每个人的生活都受到了影响。

“校园里有很多学生只想做普通学生。他们只想好好上课，不想被媒体拍摄。当初申请康奈尔大学的时候，他们可没想过要经历这些。”

但疲惫和愤怒并存，许多学生将怒火指向了科特利科夫，他上周表示，他对“简·多伊在2024年遭受的伤害深感抱歉”，并宣布了一系列新措施，以加强校园安全和支持。

他拒绝了辞职的呼吁。

当被问及是否支持这些呼吁时，乔杜里第一次停顿了一下，在脑海中梳理着自己角色所面临的复杂现实。“我现在不方便对此发表评论，”他先是说道。然后他承认，“伊沙恩作为一名学生，肯定会呼吁总统辞职……绝对的。”

但学生政治家伊沙安却不这么认为：他警告说，过渡会减缓政策变革，而且这个问题比一个人要复杂得多。

“我不认为更换大学校长就能阻止性暴力，”他说。

夜幕降临，兄弟会宿舍一片漆黑。在德尔塔·卡帕·伊普西隆兄弟会的停车场，一群衣着单薄的男生正在进行一场三对三的橄榄球对抗赛。“杀！杀！杀！”他们对着寒冷的空气大喊。不远处，另一栋兄弟会宿舍里传出震耳欲聋的电子舞曲，尽管派对气氛紧张。透过窗户可以看到模糊的人影，喧闹的谈话声从墙壁间传来。

马路对面，在汽车驶过发出叹息和抱怨声的鹅卵石小山脚下，坐落着空荡荡的奇菲兄弟会会所。学生们步履沉重地走下山坡，偶尔会瞥一眼它的窗户。这是康奈尔大学最令人沮丧的新地标。

2024年10月，那栋都铎式建筑内发生的事情，如今已成为一起民事诉讼和一项新的刑事调查的对象。自康奈尔大学完成其第九条修正案调查并关闭该兄弟会后，这栋房子一直空置。但它仍然是日益壮大的反对许多希腊式社团封闭式运作模式运动的纪念碑。

有些人认为这场运动走得太远了。西耶娜是一名大学姐妹会成员，她要求CNN不要公布她的姓氏。她是少数愿意为约翰·多伊投诉中提到的七名学生提供部分辩护的学生之一。

“我认为他们是一群害群之马中的害群之马，”她说。但她补充道，这起案件“揭示了美国公众的另一个问题”：“我们用道德标准来判定他们是否有罪。‘无罪推定’的原则是，在被证明有罪之前，任何人都是无辜的，但在这里，情况并非如此。”

在她的姐妹会里，气氛一直很“低落”。她说，很多大一和大二的学生都在想：“这起（涉嫌强奸）事件发生在两年前。为什么现在又发生了这种（丑闻）？”

“我们不想遭到负面舆论的抨击。我们不想被曝光，也不想在TikTok上被到处嘲讽，”她说。她还表示，兄弟会和姐妹会的生活应该是“对每个人来说都是积极的体验。这就是为什么我们花几千美元加入其中的原因。”

现在，她走向她的姐妹会大楼，路过那些呼吁关闭兄弟会和姐妹会的抗议者。

她辩解道：“他们误解了大学生活的运作方式。如果兄弟会/姐妹会被禁止，这些男生——他们不会就此消失。如果发生很多马匹死亡事件，难道你要说‘取缔马厩’吗？”

“问题真的不在于兄弟会，”西耶娜说。“问题在于那些坏男人。”

但据校园内许多人说，问题远不止于此。他们表示，兄弟会内部存在一种保密机制，保护不良行为。一位不愿透露姓名的康奈尔大学兄弟会成员在接受CNN采访时表示，他认同这种模式。

“虽然听到人们高喊‘去他妈的兄弟会’会让人难​​过，但我完全理解他们的愤怒从何而来，”他说。“兄弟会和姐妹会的生活确实存在一些问题。”

他说：“精英机构里的每个人都有保护自己圈子里的人的倾向。不管那栋房子里发生了什么，那两兄弟的行为都非常恶劣，充满了恶意。我觉得如果当时有更多公众监督，他们就根本没机会做出那些可怕的事情。”

他觉得禁止兄弟会聚会的规定很合理，也愿意遵守。但他对其他人的想法就不太确定了。

“我确实担心其他兄弟会/姐妹会不会不遵守规定，最终导致校园里的兄弟会/姐妹会活动被彻底取缔，”他说。当被问及是否最终会有人违规时，这位兄弟会成员毫不含糊地回答：“哦，绝对会。”

然而，并非所有人都欢迎更多监管。西耶娜认为，兄弟会和姐妹会的宿舍里已经“有很多监管措施”。她问道：“大学校园里到底还需要多少监管？说到底，我们都是十几岁或二十一岁的年轻人……我们想玩得开心，这也不是什么秘密。”

周六，寒流将至。这里的冬天可能非常严寒，而这便是它的预警。

校园里弥漫着紧张的气氛。周六通常是返校节周末最热闹的一天，但今天的活动安排却大幅缩减。往年会在伊萨卡大学城街区举办人山人海的街头派对的兄弟会，今年却被市政府拒绝发放活动许可，并被要求改在拥有111年历史的舍尔科普夫球场外的停车场进行尾门派对，周围还有大学警察把守。

目前，各种猜测甚嚣尘上。一条发布在匿名学生留言板应用 Sidechat 上的长篇信息迅速走红：信息警告说，康奈尔大学领导层已经给了兄弟会最后一次机会，但“任何一个分会犯错，兄弟会生活就可能彻底消失”。（一位兄弟会主席证实，这条信息准确地概括了大学的立场）。

橄榄球场上一片欢腾，康奈尔大学爆冷击败了不败的利哈伊大学。但大多数兄弟会成员并没有观看比赛。他们回到了大学城，尽管公共活动被禁止，他们仍然挤满了街道。起初，一切看起来都很正常，学生们在喝酒、欢笑，仿佛一场普通的庆祝活动。然而，警察突然出现，驱散了人群。刚才还充满反抗和焦虑的人群，几分钟内便散去了。

许多人只是想玩得开心。但结果却引发了一场清算，康奈尔大学的学生们因此分裂。

庞佐亚告诉CNN：“兄弟会掌握着很大的权力。兄弟会和姐妹会在这里有着举足轻重的地位。”康奈尔大学的抗议者声称，这种权力多年来一直不受制约。

但现在，权力格局可能正在发生变化。

几个星期以来，贝克维斯对自己的大学几乎没有任何自豪感。但后来，在被投诉的震惊过后，他开始在其他方面找到自豪感。

他说：“我看到很多学生在抗议活动中，在（学生报纸）《康奈尔每日太阳报》上挺身而出，站出来发声。这很鼓舞人心。”

“这是一个非常黑暗的时期，”他承认，“但你也看到了很多希望。”