This article contains mentions of rape and assault.
When SPJ journalists heard about the Cornell University Chi Phi fraternity lawsuit that has received attention nationwide, none of them were surprised to hear it was student journalists at The Cornell Daily Sun who broke the story.
A national investigation that has ignited shock, anger and questions for several weeks has been dubbed the Cornell Seven. The number is how many Chi Phi fraternity members were allegedly involved in the gang rape of a former student in 2024, and who were named in the Daily Sun’s article. Reporter Cereese Qusba’s work, who investigated the case for two years, did not go unnoticed during SPJ 2026.
“I was not surprised to hear that student journalists were the ones really leading the charge there,” said Columbus Dispatch higher education reporter Sheridan Hendrix. “I think that student journalists often have a better sense of what is happening on their campuses than the beat reporters that are also covering those campuses, so it was not a huge surprise to me that they were the first to break the story.”
During the SPJ 2026 session, “Campus Is a City: Covering Colleges as Accountability Beats,” Hendrix spoke to several student journalists on how to hold universities accountable in the way done by The Cornell Daily Sun. Emma Wozniak, a Dispatch business and real estate reporter, also spoke about the importance of student news.
“I personally was very surprised when I was working at The Lantern, Ohio State University’s news publication, by how many people on campus read student news,” said Wozniak. “Just in the context right now, what’s going on with Cornell, that story broke because of student journalism.”
Some attendees asked for advice on how to talk to academic leaders and faculty who don’t take student journalists seriously.
Nicole Kraft, director of Ohio State University’s Sports and Society Institute, shared the importance of cultivating relationships with academic leaders first before trying to get interviews or statements. Student newsroom advisors should help maintain those relationships as student editors and leaders change throughout the year.
Rochelle Alleyne, an investigative reporter at WBNS/10TV and Isabel Cleary, an NBC4 Columbus reporter, also discussed The Cornell Daily Sun’s investigation during their SPJ 2026 session, “Becoming an Investigator.” Alleyne and Cleary offered detailed tips on how to find and organize documents, how to expand on breaking news and shared story ideas attendees could investigate in their own communities.
When asked about The Cornell Daily Sun’s decision to include the names of the seven fraternity members in its article, Cleary understood their reasoning after reading the newspaper’s editorial, published a few days after the original story.
“I think it’s about weighing the public’s right to know versus potential harm. The court record is a public record, so anyone can kind of get that, no doubt about it,” said Cleary. “I think their decision really helped propel this into the conversation and show that they meant business and this was an important story that people were overlooking.”
When it comes to student journalists protecting themselves while pursuing investigative stories like the Cornell Seven, SPJ members spoke about the importance of working with others and being persistent. They offered SPJ, the Student Press Law Center and student newsroom academic advisors as sources to rely on when seeking legal advice and community for investigative stories.
“It might seem like this is something that a larger outlet should be the one working on, but if you have the guts to do it, if you have the inkling of what the story could be, and I’m sure that there are people across your campus, in your newsroom who want to help you; get all the help you can get, and go for it,” Hendrix said.
Featured image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay