Sally Yates, the Obama-era deputy attorney general whom President Donald Trump fired in 2017 after she instructed the Justice Department not to defend his executive order on travel from terror-linked nations, will now lead Cornell University's independent review of sexual assault policies, Fox News reports.
The university's trustees tapped Yates to conduct a sweeping examination of the October 2024 allegations involving members of Cornell's Chi Phi fraternity, following a campus investigation that ended in expulsions and suspensions, according to reporting first detailed by CBS News and covered by other outlets.
Yates served as acting attorney general for ten days in January 2017. She was dismissed after directing DOJ attorneys to disregard the travel ban, a decision the White House said at the time amounted to abandoning her duty to defend a lawful presidential order.
The Case She Now Inherits
The case centers on a woman identified in court papers as Jane Doe, who told Cornell University Police in a November 2024 interview, “I can say with 100% confidence I was raped,” according to a transcript obtained by CBS News. She described later sexual activity as coercive and said she had been “completely and totally incapacitated.”
Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten has said his office reviewed a six-page sworn statement describing Doe's participation in the sexual activity and drug use as voluntary and consensual. Cornell has said its police department provided prosecutors with Doe's sworn statement and a Snapchat screenshot in 2024, describing the evidence-sharing process as standard protocol when a possible crime has occurred.
New York attorney Scott Iseman, who has represented students accused of campus sexual misconduct, told CBS News that Yates could compare Doe's full recorded police interview with her sworn statement, later testimony and other evidence from the university's investigation. “Those full recorded interviews, I can tell you from experience, have a treasure trove of information that are really, really important to exactly what happened,” Iseman said. “It wouldn't surprise me if there was additional information in there that would have changed the trajectory of this case because that happens all the time.”
Iseman added that differences between Doe's full interview and the shorter sworn statement could prove significant: “Law enforcement is supposed to make sure that all salient facts are included in that sworn statement.”
Why This Pick Is Raising Eyebrows
Yates has been a flashpoint on the right since her dismissal. She publicly warned the Trump administration in 2017 that she would not defend the travel ban, and her firing made her a cause célèbre among Democrats — she later delivered a speech at the 2020 Democratic National Convention and has been a vocal critic of the president since leaving government.
Critics of campus sexual misconduct proceedings have long argued that universities stack review panels with figures aligned with progressive orthodoxy, and that the accused are presumed guilty from the first complaint. Yates' history of defying the elected president she served under is unlikely to reassure those skeptics. It is not yet known what scope Cornell's trustees have given her review, whether current or former students will be called to testify, or whether the findings will be made public.
Cornell declined to say whether Yates is being compensated for the review or how the panel was assembled. Fox News reported her selection; CBS News first surfaced the transcript at the heart of the case.
What It Means for Cornell Families
Parents sending children to Cornell — and the students already on campus — are the ones with the most at stake. The review's findings could reshape how the university handles sexual assault reports, how quickly it shares evidence with local prosecutors, and whether accused students get a meaningful chance to respond before punishment is imposed.
For Jane Doe, whose account is at the center of the dispute, Yates' inquiry could confirm or undercut her version of events. For the accused fraternity members, it could determine whether the punishments already handed down stand. The Tompkins County district attorney's review of the case has not produced charges, and the discrepancies between the sworn statement and Doe's full interview remain unresolved.
Our Take
Cornell had every option in the country and chose the woman Trump fired for refusing to do her job. Yates is not some neutral academic — she is a partisan operative who put her personal politics above her oath, and now she is being handed control of a review where accusations, evidence, and reputations are already bleeding into one another.
Patriots should pay attention to what this actually is: the same university that bungled the original investigation is now outsourcing the cleanup to a figure whose primary qualification appears to be opposing the twice-elected president of the United States. If Cornell wanted a process Americans could trust, it would have picked someone with no history of putting ideology over evidence.
Watch what this review produces — and watch whether it surfaces the full police interview or buries it. Ask yourself: does anyone believe Yates is the person to give everyone in this case a fair shake? Cornell's trustees made their choice. Now the rest of us get to judge it.
