Actress Florence Pugh called on men to confront sexual violence after a woman sued Cornell University and 7 fraternity members over an alleged assault in 2024. In an Instagram carousel posted September 27, 2026, Pugh urged men to help change the behavior and complicity that allow abuse to happen.
The plaintiff, identified as Jane Doe, says she was 20 when she was pressured into consuming alcohol and ketamine at the Chi Phi fraternity house on October 19, 2024. She alleges that 7 members sexually assaulted her over several hours while she was incapacitated. Her lawsuit says a member advertised “free pussy” upstairs in a Snapchat message to the fraternity’s group chat.
Doe filed the lawsuit on September 16, 2026, naming Cornell, the men, the fraternity, her sorority and a bar. All 7 men deny wrongdoing, and none has been criminally charged.
Cornell’s Title IX proceedings resulted in different penalties. Matthew Ingalls and Jonathan Newell were expelled; 2 others received suspensions with probation. Another had already graduated and was barred from campus.
The remaining 2 received no-contact orders, educational modules and reflection papers. The chapter is banned from campus.
Pugh criticized schools for “protecting boys, in fear of their futures being wrecked.” Her criticism of apology essays concerned the 2 men given the lightest sanctions.
Cornell has disputed the description of its response as “minimal consequences.” Pugh also mistakenly called the institution Cornell College, a separate school in Iowa; the lawsuit concerns Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
The Tompkins County district attorney initially declined to bring charges in 2024. He later said Doe’s November 2024 sworn statement “did not allege that she was drugged against her will or gang raped.”
The criminal investigation reopened on September 28, 2026. The New York attorney general’s office is also examining Cornell’s handling of the case.
Instagram placed a sensitive-content warning on Pugh’s carousel, prompting her to question whether women were being silenced for discussing rape. Meta said it later removed the warning under a newsworthy allowance, although the post remained age-restricted.
Pugh continued discussing the case during her East of Eden press appearances. On September 30, she described the fear women carry: “It sits in us daily, this percentage of fear that is living in our body just in case something happens.” She asked for those comments to be kept separate from the Netflix project and said men needed to take up the conversation.
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