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Warning: This article contains details of sexual assault.
This week, New York prosecutors reopened a case from two years ago involving a student who suffered an alleged drugging and gang rape by members of the Chi Phi fraternity at Cornell University. The plaintiff, who is identified as Jane Doe, claims the school did not do enough to protect her, which resulted in her eventually dropping out from the school. Now, she is suing seven of the former and current students who purportedly attacked her, as well as the college and the fraternity.
When the plaintiff first made a report to the Cornell University Police Department back in October 2024, it resulted in no criminal charges. Two of the students were expelled, while others were given temporary suspensions or essay-writing assignments, according to a report from Doe’s attorney. Now, the plaintiff has filed a civil lawsuit, which provides even more disturbing details about the attack, and is to be examined by a grand jury.
The story has garnered national media attention, not only because it is the latest in a decades-long lineage of horrific accusations of sexual assault on college campuses, but also because celebrities, like Oscar-nominated star Florence Pugh, are shining a light on its disturbing implications.
The English actor brought widespread attention to the case when she shared a message to her Instagram, one which she says the social media platform tried to “block” from “getting in front of the right people.” She called the details of the story “horrific” and said that she was feeling “uneasy and sick and anxious.”
“This is really the moment where we need our men to be as horrified and as sickened as us,” Pugh wrote. “You need to be leading conversations about how we change the allowance and complicity of this behavior as much as we are. How can you expect us to trust that it’s ‘not all men’ when in moments like this, many of you stay quiet?”
Pugh went on to call rape the “killing of a soul.” She declared: “We are not hard enough on those that want to damage human lives. I salute all those at the college that are fighting for that girl, exposing those boys and making life unbearably impossible to find joy during their terms. They should not be allowed to walk freely like the rest of us who treasure and care for souls.”
She closed her message by writing: “There is no equality until you respect our bodies. There is no equality until you stop damaging our souls. There is no equality until you let us live. There is no equality until we can say we feel safe. We are the life force of this earth, start f***ing protecting us. Be angry for us. Please.”
You can read her full statement here.
If you or someone you know is affected by sexual assault, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-HOPE (4673) or find support online at rainn.org.
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