Content Warning: This article discusses allegations of sexual assault.
Mariska Hargitay, Hudson Williams, Josh Gad and more celebrities are speaking out against the Cornell sexual assault case.
On Thursday, reports emerged that an anonymous former Cornell student was suing the school and seven Chi Pi fraternity members, claiming the organization failed to protect her and prevent the assault, alleged to have occurred in 2024. The Jane Doe claims that she visited the Chi Pi fraternity house while intoxicated, where she alleges that two frat brothers pressured her into snorting a substance they claimed was ketamine before beginning to sexually assault her. A man then allegedly told the frat’s Snapchat group that a woman was available for sex. The claimant then says she was raped for hours.
After filing a report to university police, an investigation ended with only two of seven accused fraternity members expelled, while others received less punishments such as suspensions, workshops and essays.
“We refuse for this victim to be reduced to just another story. Cornell has failed to protect its students,” Hargitay said in a statement with the Joyful Heart Foundation posted to Instagram Monday.
The “Law and Order: SVU” star spoke more candidly in a number of Instagram Stories.
“Dear men and boys. If your friends tell you they’re gang raping someone, call the f–king police,” she wrote. “Yes, I think we should ruin the futures of adult men who drug and gang rape a woman. Thanks for asking. 57 men were in that fraternity group chat. 57. Not one of them stopped it.”
One of the first celebrities to speak out against Cornell was also one of the biggest – Florence Pugh. She took to her social media Sunday to share her long letter on the assault allegations.
“After reading about the young woman who was gang raped at her college by her friend and school peers, I’m feeling uneasy and sick and anxious. I’m processing quietly and watching everything and everyone and every man,” Pugh wrote. “This is really the moment where we need our men to be as horrified and as sickened as us. You need to be leading conversations about how we change the allowance and complicity of this behaviour 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?”
She added: “Every single person who knew or heard about this happening, should be looked at with serious concern. They are as evil as those planning it. To know that a torture as violent as rape is about to happen ‘upstairs’ and not do ANYTHING ABOUT IT, is sick, cowardly and cold. This is a killing of a soul. Destroying of a body and killing of a soul. And they’ve been let off? All it takes is write a quick ‘I’m so sorry I raped a girl while she was drugged with my friends, we thought it would be fine?’ essay and you’re good to go! This is unacceptable.”
The celebrity callouts have only continued. “The Good Place” alum Jameela Jamil did not hold back in her response.
“I think the likes of the Cornell 7 shouldn’t be allowed penises anymore,” she wrote. “They used them as weapons, so now they have to be confiscated. I think jail time, legal castration and a removal of the shaft seems like the bare minimum.”
“Heated Rivalry” star Hudson Williams kept his social media post short but succinct, while also sharing pictures of the seven men allegedly involved.
“Arrest them,” Hudson wrote. “F–k them and f–k Cornell, too!”
Josh Gad also posted a long note social media.
“When we start setting a precedent that our girls and women can be brutally raped, and the resulting disciplinary action is to hand out (checks notes) ESSAYS (like it’s Bart Simpson being a lil’ rascal), about why it was wrong to brutally violate an innocent girl, we have lost our f–king minds.”
Toby Morton, who wrote a handful of episodes for “South Park” in its early days, has created a website called “Cornell 7” that is slowly being filled out with as much information as he can find on the seven men listed in the lawsuit.
“I’ve received messages reminding me I’m not a journalist, I’m ‘just a satirist,’” Morton wrote. “This is true. But this makes me more dangerous. I have no limits. No boundaries. Nobody to tell me I’ve gone too far.”
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, help is available through RAINN, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network. Call 800-656-HOPE (4673) or visit RAINN.org for confidential support and resources.
