After ‘Cornell Seven,’ Black LSU Student Shares a Similar Story on Social Media

While national headlines focus on the high-profile “Cornell Seven” civil lawsuit, a strikingly similar breakdown of campus justice is unfolding at Louisiana State University. This time, a young Black woman, Kendall Francis, is blowing the whistle on TikTok after her school’s Title IX process failed her. Now, speaking publicly about her sexual assault has forced the East Baton Rouge District Attorney to open an active criminal investigation, proving once again that for many survivors, social media has become the court of last resort.

Francis, a former LSU student, first made her allegations public in a TikTok posted in September. “So I was raped by a football player at LSU last year in October,” she said, specifying that the alleged assault occurred Oct. 18, 2025, at about 4:30 a.m. “That day basically changed my life.”

Francis went to a hospital after the alleged assault and underwent a rape-kit examination. She initially chose not to pursue criminal charges. Instead, she went through LSU’s Title IX process.

The university ultimately found LSU defensive end Damien Shanklin responsible for “forcible rape,” according to ESPN, but his punishment was later reduced on appeal to four semesters of probation, allowing him to remain on campus.

Francis said she found out about the decision while sitting in class. “It said EVEN though he admitted to rape, he was able to play football, able to join orgs,” she said in her TikTok. With that, Francis said she developed “really, really bad” anxiety over the thought of running into the athlete on campus.

LSU maintained the finding of responsibility while putting Shanklin on disciplinary probation, according to NBC News. The player has not been criminally charged, and his attorneys have said that social media and news accounts do not represent the full circumstances of the case.

The reopening of Kendall Francis’ case at Louisiana State comes following renewed scrutiny of how colleges and law enforcement respond to allegations of sexual violence. At Cornell University, a separate 2024 allegation involving seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity— Matthew Ingalls, Jonathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris and Scott Kretzschmar– has also been reopened, with New York Attorney General Letitia James appointed special prosecutor after questions were raised about the initial investigation, according to ABC News.

Jane Doe alleged she was drugged and raped in 2024 and after finally filing formal complaints against her alleged attackers, little disciplinary action was taken. The cases at LSU and Cornell are different, but both have drawn attention to what happens when survivors say institutional processes failed to give their allegations proper scrutiny.

RAINN reports that 13% of undergraduate students experienced rape or sexual assault after enrolling in college, including 26% of undergraduate women. The organization also found that 60% of reported rapes involving college-age victims were committed by someone the victim knew.

And race further shapes survivors’ experiences. A 2021 study of 690 sexual-assault survivors found that Black survivors were more likely than white survivors to report intimate-partner perpetrators and faced documented differences in post-assault care. Research cited by the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence has similarly highlighted elevated lifetime rape rates among Black women and barriers to reporting and receiving support.

For Francis, speaking publicly has become another part of a process she says began with an assault and continued through the investigation. “The fact my entire freshman year was taken away from me because of this experience is why I spoke out about it,” she told WAFB.

As Francis and Jane Doe seek justice, the renewed investigations now place those systems under scrutiny as much as the allegations themselves. As of now, no one has been formally charged with a crime in connection with either case.