AMNA NAWAZ: There are new revelations about how authorities handled an alleged gang rape at Cornell University in 2024.

The case has sparked national outrage after a woman identified only as Jane Doe filed a civil lawsuit against Cornell and others.

In it, she alleged that she was sexually assaulted by multiple men at a party thrown at the Chi Phi fraternity house, where she was given alcohol and pressure to snort ketamine.

The woman says authorities failed to do enough in light of the allegations.

Criminal charges were never filed.

But Cornell has said it investigated and took disciplinary action, including suspensions, expulsions, and banning the Chi Phi chapter.

This afternoon, the Student Assembly at Cornell had a special meeting to discuss the anger over how the case was handled.

WOMAN: Survivors need to know that when they come forward with their story, somebody will listen and the broader institution will act upon it.

Through this event, we have witnessed the complete opposite.

AMNA NAWAZ: For his part, the Tompkins County district attorney said details in Jane Doe's original statement did not support criminal charges at the time.

But new reporting out today finds Cornell police left out key information in a statement given to local law enforcement.

That includes Jane Doe's statement saying -- quote -- "I can say with 100 percent confidence I was raped."

Sharon Otterman is covering the story for The New York Times and joins us now.

Sharon, welcome to the show.

Thanks for being with us.

SHARON OTTERMAN, The New York Times: Thank you so much for having me.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, you and your team obtained more than 1,000 pages of documents, texts, and photos and e-mails from Cornell's internal inquiry.

That includes transcripts of original interviews with the then 20-year-old undergrad now known as Jane Doe.

Tell us more about who the interviews are with.

And what's key to understanding this case and what you read?

SHARON OTTERMAN: So this is the entire investigative file.

It's really the appendixes, but it's about 1,100 pages of interviews, both with the woman, with six of the seven men who she accused, and with about 20 witnesses.

And then there's also screenshots of various social media interactions, photographs, and other evidence that they compiled internally for their own investigation to figure out, were these students guilty of what she's accusing them of, and, if so, should they be expelled or otherwise punished?

AMNA NAWAZ: So it's the first time we're learning some of these details.

They do reveal a lot, as you report, about Jane Doe's response to the alleged incident.

What did you take away from the messages about how she was processing and her sort of evolution of thought?

SHARON OTTERMAN: We don't often, I think, get to have this kind of window into somebody who has gone through an incident like this and get to watch her processing in real time.

When she first comes out of the incident, she -- one of the men contacts her and sort of apologizes, says, oh, I'm so sorry that got out of hand.

And her impulse is to be like, oh, no, don't worry about it.

It's OK.

And then, over the course of about two or three weeks, she starts to realize that the only people she's really protecting here are the people she's accusing.

And she herself is starting to get painted in her own community as somebody who did this willingly and was kind of a whore, is what the word she used for doing it.

And then, ultimately, she sees a comment.

Somebody says, oh, there's gangbanging going on at this fraternity house.

And somebody anonymously comments back, dudes, like they raped a sophomore.

Like, we need to report this.

And I think that's like the first time that she told investigators that she was like, oh, my God, that is what happened to me.

AMNA NAWAZ: The documents also reveal the accounts of the men involved in this alleged incident, interviews conducted with six of the seven men who were accused.

What do those interviews tell us about how they viewed that night?

SHARON OTTERMAN: They all deny that there was anything but consensual sex.

Some of them deny that they were even in the room.

And I want to say, in fairness to the men, there are some that do have sex with her, and others are just present.

So she's not accusing all of them in these original documents of actually intercourse, although she knows that she is very under the influence of ketamine, which she'd never tried before and was sort of pushed on her.

She's not quite sure.

That's why she says, I'm 100 percent certain I was raped, but she doesn't exactly remember everything.

AMNA NAWAZ: I need to say, in your reporting, you include that the lawyers for at least three of the men have broadly denied any criminal wrongdoing, and others have yet to make public statements.

The key question here, though, Sharon, in terms of accountability, is, what do we know about how all of these documents and the transcripts and the text messages did not make it to the district attorney?

How did that happen?

SHARON OTTERMAN: Only a six-page summary of what was a 120-page-long transcript made it to the district attorney.

He made his determination based on that.

I think that that is probably standard in these cases, that the district attorney is not going to pore over a transcript.

There is a lot that was left out of that transcript.

We also have a very narrow definition of rape under New York state law.

And if she was willingly intoxicated, it makes the bar to prove sexual assault much higher.

And he just, at that moment, just seeing that one document didn't think that it met the bar and wasn't curious enough, for lack of a better word, to ask for more details.

AMNA NAWAZ: As we have reported, prosecutors are reopening the case.

Is there any sense of how these documents might impact that case moving forward?

SHARON OTTERMAN: We know that, obviously, he will have access to this file.

He has reached out to her lawyer to reinterview her.

He has -- he told my colleague that he does have new -- quote -- "evidence" of some sort, but he wouldn't say what it was.

So there may well be something new there that will allow him to bring the case before a grand jury.

AMNA NAWAZ: That is Sharon Otterman of The New York Times joining us tonight.

Sharon, thank you so much.

SHARON OTTERMAN: Thank you for having me.