{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.gillibrand.senate.gov/news/press/release/gillibrand-calls-allegations-in-cornell-rape-case-serious-and-horrific-on-nprs-all-things-considered/", "Gillibrand Calls Allegations In Cornell Rape Case \u201cSerious And Horrific\u201d On NPR\u2019s All Things Considered", "2026-09-29", "2026", "2026-09", "Democrat", "Senate", "NY", "Kirsten E. Gillibrand", "G000555", "www.gillibrand.senate.gov", "gillibrand", "https://www.gillibrand.senate.gov/press-releases/page/", "scraper", "***Hear Senator Gillibrand\u2019s Full Interview Here***\n\nToday, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) called the allegations in the Cornell University fraternity rape case \u201cserious and horrific\u201d in an interview on NPR\u2019s All Things Considered and issued the following statement:\n\n\u201cThe allegations made in the Cornell University complaint are extremely serious and horrific.\n\n\u201cI am glad the district attorney is reopening this case. Regardless of what this grand jury concludes, the larger truth is clear: a system that forces survivors to these lengths is a system that is fundamentally broken. Victims deserve thorough investigations, and perpetrators must be held accountable.\n\n\u201cOur priorities are upside down. The Senate recently spent two weeks urgently talking about college sports but has spent years looking away from sexual violence and student safety on our college campuses.\n\n\u201cCongress must act and take up my bipartisan Campus Accountability and Safety Act (CASA) with Senator Chuck Grassley to hold campuses accountable, create a fair process for students, and ensure victims have access to a dedicated advocate to assist in navigating the adjudication process.\u201d\n\nListen to Senator Gillibrand\u2019s interview with NPR here. Full transcript of Senator Gillibrand\u2019s interview below:\n\nSACHA PFEIFFER: It\u2019s All Things Considered from NPR News. I\u2019m Sacha Pfeiffer.\n\nJUANA SUMMERS: And I\u2019m Juana Summers. When I heard a woman\u2019s allegations that she was drugged and gang raped at a Cornell University fraternity house in 2024, the story felt familiar to me. It\u2019s not because the story was well known before this weekend. It\u2019s because so many of the details she alleges \u2013 a campus party, a fraternity, drugs, alcohol, and sexual assault \u2013 echo so many of the stories we\u2019ve heard from numerous college campuses for years.\n\nPFEIFFER: The alleged assault at Cornell happened in 2024. Campus police investigated, but no criminal charges were ever filed. Cornell defends its handling of the case. Now the woman, identified as Jane Doe, has brought a civil case against the university and the seven male students she says assaulted her. That has prompted prosecutors to reopen the case, and the details of these allegations have sparked national outrage.\n\nSUMMERS: To unpack all of this, I called up someone earlier today who\u2019s been pushing for years for legislation to address the handling of campus sexual assault crimes, New York Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, and I started by asking her for her reaction to these allegations, as well as the decision to reopen the case.\n\nGILLIBRAND: Well, I\u2019m certainly grateful that the DA is reopening the investigation. I\u2019ve just seen the public reports, and obviously these allegations are extremely serious and horrific, and as a parent with a kid in college, this is probably something that every parent in America wants addressed.\n\nSUMMERS: Matthew Van Houten, who\u2019s the Tompkins County District Attorney, said on Monday that Jane Doe\u2019s original statement two years ago, and I\u2019m going to quote him here, did not allege that she was drugged against her will or gang raped. Now, in light of the new details provided in that civil suit, he says he would now let a grand jury decide. Her lawyer told CNN that the new report was not materially different from what was contained in the original complaint. What questions would you want answered about how investigators handled that initial report?\n\nGILLIBRAND: So, one of the things that I found over the years of working in this space, is that the people who do the interviews initially or ask questions initially have to be highly trained. They have to be experts in this kind of trauma. They have to be experts on what happens when someone has lived through this kind of trauma. You need a trauma-informed counselor to do that first interview, and a lot of our lawyers, a lot of our district attorneys, a lot of law enforcement are not trained in that way. We studied cases where law enforcement groups were trained appropriately, and it exponentially increased the number of people who reported rapes. It increased the number of people whose cases actually went to adjudication, and it increased the number of convictions.\n\nSUMMERS: I mean, you have been working on these issues for such a long time. I think it was more than a decade ago that I was talking to you, covering the bipartisan push that you and other lawmakers made to address this issue to curb the rates of sexual assaults on campuses. You\u2019ve come back to this legislation over and over again, and yet I have to say, Senator, it doesn\u2019t feel like much has changed. Is that your view?\n\nGILLIBRAND: No, I think very little has changed. I do imagine that many campuses have put in place much better policies than they had a decade ago, but Congress hasn\u2019t done its part, and we just spent two weeks talking about college sports. Congress should spend at least that time talking about how to make campuses safe for all students.\n\nSUMMERS: What would you like to see Congress do? What\u2019s an appropriate step here?\n\nGILLIBRAND: Well, I\u2019d like to have hearings on the piece of legislation that Senator Grassley and I have authored, CASA, and then we should be able to get a vote. Just simply get a vote so that we can hold campuses and communities of responsibility, hold them accountable for whether they are protecting all students or not, and that is literally not happening today on many, many college campuses.\n\nSUMMERS: Senator Gillibrand, I\u2019ve heard you for a long time, on and off the Hill. So I want to ask you a question, not as a senator, but just as a mom. And I understand that you have at least one son who\u2019s college age. How do you talk to your sons? How do we talk to young men about situations and allegations like these? Because these instances, they keep happening year after year, from college campus to college campus.\n\nGILLIBRAND: Well, as a mom, I of course worry about the safety and well-being of my children, and I try to make sure that they understand the risks they have every day. I also read the story about a bunch of kids who died on campus because they did some drug that\u2019s not fentanyl but worse than fentanyl. So when I hear stories like this, I just talk to my children about what happened on these campuses, what happened to these children, and ask them like, \u201cDo you ever see yourself in this situation? What would you do in this situation? Who would you ask for help? You know, would you save someone? Would you stick up for someone? Would you prevent someone from taking a risk that\u2019s very scary, like taking drugs?\u201d I think a lot of campuses have some sexual assault prevention training. I don\u2019t know if all campuses have them, but I know that my sons have had those trainings on their campuses. So it\u2019s very hard, and you just want your children and their friends and their whole community to be safe.\n\nSUMMERS: I mean, just taking a step away from the specifics of these allegations at Cornell University, I just know so many women, myself included, who have had stories of experiencing unwanted sexual contact, assault, or rape on their campuses who then seek help from systems that were ostensibly built to keep them safe, and yet feel let down or betrayed, and it keeps happening. So I guess the question I have is, what makes it stop? What\u2019s the tipping point?\n\nGILLIBRAND: What you\u2019ve heard from many survivors, and this is the throughline, is that when they felt they could report what happened, they were not received openly. They were received with disbelief. They were received with blame. They were received with, \u201cThat\u2019s what you were wearing,\u201d or \u201cYou were drinking that,\u201d or \u201cYou were doing drugs. What do you expect?\u201d Like sometimes, the first person they talk to is so uninformed and so poorly trained. They say all the wrong things, and the things that they say in those instances often will leave a survivor to drop the case or to blame him or herself and unwilling to tell his or her story. That does not set a campus up for safety or for success. You need to have a system that works, that works for everyone, that is 100% transparent.\n\nSUMMERS: We\u2019ve been speaking with Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York. Thank you so much.\n\nGILLIBRAND: Thank you.\n\n###", 1, "2026-09-30T10:57:52Z", "2026-09-30T10:59:04Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.gillibrand.senate.gov/news/press/release/gillibrand-calls-allegations-in-cornell-rape-case-serious-and-horrific-on-nprs-all-things-considered/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.8896609544754028, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}