Florence Pugh has urged men in the entertainment industry to condemn Cornell University’s handling of an alleged 2024 fraternity gang rape, and a local prosecutor said he is reopening the case.
The actress posted a lengthy letter Sunday responding to a lawsuit filed this month by a former Cornell student identified as Jane Doe. The suit accuses seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity of drugging and raping her at their house in October 2024, and faults the university for failing to protect her. Pugh wrote that she felt sick reading about it and asked how women can be expected to trust the “not all men” reassurance when so many men stay quiet. She ended by telling them to “be angry for us.” Josh Gad also criticized the university.
Much of the anger centers on discipline. Doe’s attorney says only two of the seven accused were expelled, while others received suspensions, workshops or essays. Cornell says its offices investigated the allegations under university policy. It says the Xi chapter of Chi Phi remains barred from campus and federal privacy law prevents it from discussing individual students’ punishments. The school says it will respond through the legal process.
Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten said he intends to bring the case before a grand jury with Doe’s cooperation. He described the civil complaint’s allegations as “dramatically different” from her 2024 statement to campus police. In that statement, he said, she did not claim she was drugged without her knowledge, forced into any act or incapacitated. His office did not charge anyone at the time, Van Houten said, and relied on the campus police investigation without conducting its own. He said the fraternity group chat cited in the complaint never reached his office.
Thomas Giuffra, Doe’s attorney, disputes that account. He says authorities received the chat in 2024 and that no one with training in handling abuse cases ever followed up with his client.
Defendants have pushed back. An attorney for Scott Kretzschmar says the incident never happened and his client never touched the plaintiff. Scott Norris says he took no part in sexual activity or drug use, though he acknowledges sending a message quoted in the complaint. The remaining defendants have not been reported as commenting.
