A lawsuit involving Cornell University and seven members of the Chi Pi fraternity has brought to light details of an alleged hours-long sexual assault in 2024, leading to public outcry on social media.
But in some cases, posts about the case aren’t reaching their full intended audience.
The case gained national public attention after the victim filed a civil lawsuit that claims the seven men drugged and raped her over the course of seven hours.
Following the events in 2024, Cornell University expelled only two of the alleged perpetrators, while the rest received lesser sanctions, including writing essays, the lawsuit reveals, yet none were arrested at the time.
In a statement on Monday, Cornell stated that it “conducted a thorough Title IX investigation” at the time. It called the lawsuit’s narrative “irresponsible” and pointed out that the fraternity chapter has since been closed and banned from campus.
“Any suggestion that the university did not impose consequential punishments for those involved is false,” the statement read.
Social media speaks up
The public response from both the university and law enforcement comes only after increased pressure from social media users.
Since last week, brutal details outlined in the civil case have made their way across social platforms.
According to court documents, the perpetrators went as far as inviting other fraternity members to participate in the abuse via a text sent to a shared Snapchat group chat.
Users on social media went on to find the seven alleged abusers, contacting their places of work to demand accountability, as well as calling on Cornell University and local officials to take further action—even as mainstream media remained mostly silent on the case.
That outcry seems to have worked. New York prosecutors have now reopened a criminal investigation on the event, which Cornell said in its statement on Monday that it supported.
Sensitive content warnings
For a case that exists in the public consciousness almost entirely because of social media, some are wondering if social platforms are deterring public figures from sharing their stance on the issue.
English actress Florence Pugh took to her Instagram to share details about the case with her more than 10 million followers, but within a few hours, the post was hidden behind a sensitive content warning and a blurred overlay—despite being a text-based slide post with no graphic images.
“Colleges/schools/universities repeatedly fail women around the world. you build men that get taught through time and time again that they can do extreme harm and that they won’t be harmed in return,” Pugh said in an Instagram post.
She concluded the message saying, “Be angry for us. Please.”
Many users on social media have also reported that, in addition to the blurred overlay, the platform will not let them swipe past the warning in order to reach the message.
The slides have been screenshotted and shared throughout platforms, with users confirming that they can’t access the original post, which now has over 173,000 reposts.
Pugh has since spoken out about Instagram allegedly hiding her content, posting a screenshot of the blurred overlay as well as posting on her story on the subject.
“Rather worryingly, neither I or some of my followers can access the recent post . . . am I being censored for talking about rape?” Pugh said in her story.
Fast Company reached out to Meta Platforms, Instagram’s owner, for comment.
Instagram has settings that let users control how much sensitive content makes it into their feeds, though it’s clear that users have fundamental disagreements about what should and shouldn’t be filtered.
“Watched a cow get hit by a train uncensored on Instagram (was awful and shouldn’t have been posted),” one user posted on X, “but someone posting awareness about the Cornell 7 gets silenced? Okay.”
