Women are declaring “I am Jane Doe” online as Cornell SA accuser faces attempts to expose her identity
Women are flooding social media with posts declaring “I am Jane Doe” in support of the Cornell University student who is suing the school and seven fraternity members over allegations that she was raped in 2024. The posts began spreading after people online attempted to identify the woman, who is using the pseudonym Jane Doe in the lawsuit.
Some of the women joining the campaign are deliberately claiming to be the plaintiff in hopes of making it harder to determine which information about her is real. The campaign has grown as the woman and her lawyer face threats related to the lawsuit. Her attorney, Thomas Giuffra, told Reuter that people have threatened to silence or harm his client unless she drops the case, and said he had also received a threat.
The posts are meant to confuse the internet
The “I am Jane Doe” posts have appeared across TikTok, Instagram and X, with some women sharing their own experiences with sexual assault alongside their claims that they are the Cornell plaintiff. One woman recently shared an account of going to a Cornell fraternity house in 2006 to retrieve an intoxicated friend, saying she became concerned after the friend stopped responding coherently and was alone with a man. Her friend eventually returned to her, she said.
The strategy is partly aimed at confusing online searches and artificial intelligence systems that could otherwise be used to connect the anonymous lawsuit to a real person. Kelsey Combe, a photographer who participated in the campaign, said that she wanted to “confuse the AI models” while showing solidarity with the woman. She later discovered that an AI system had incorrectly identified her as the actual woman who sued Cornell.
The campaign began after independent journalist Michael Tracey attempted to identify the Cornell plaintiff online. Tracey posted a name he said belonged to the woman but later deleted the post.
New York law permits people bringing sexual assault lawsuits to use a pseudonym such as Jane Doe. The women participating in the campaign are using their own public identities while claiming to be the anonymous plaintiff, creating multiple possible identities for anyone attempting to find her.
The lawsuit has come up again
The woman alleges that she was drugged and raped by members of Cornell’s Chi Phi fraternity in 2024. She filed a civil lawsuit against Cornell and seven fraternity members, while the men named in the suit have denied the allegations.
The case has also prompted a renewed criminal investigation where New York Gov. Kathy Hochul appointed state Attorney General Letitia James as a special prosecutor after criticism of the original handling of the allegations. Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff has also said the university will conduct an outside review of how it handled the allegations and examine the role of fraternities on campus.
For the women posting as Jane Doe, however, the immediate issue is the attempt to identify the plaintiff herself. Some participants have said the campaign is intended to make it harder for strangers, search engines and AI systems to determine who she is while drawing attention to the broader issue of sexual assault and the pressure survivors face when they come forward.
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