Cornell victim’s supporters flood internet with ‘I Am Jane Doe’ posts to confuse algorithms: ‘We have had enough’

Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Membership today.

Supporters of the former Cornell University student who alleged she was drugged and raped by members of its Chi Phi fraternity in October 2024 have begun posting “I Am Jane Doe” messages in solidarity.

The common pseudonym is being adopted by social media users to express sympathy with the woman – who sued the Ivy League school and her seven attackers under that name last month – to share their own personal accounts of sexual abuse.

But it is also intended to confuse search algorithms being used to try to identify her.

Wendy Lea Brewer, a singer, told the Associated Press she posted the slogans “I Am Jane Doe” and “It’s Time to Speak” on Instagram after hearing about the case, commenting: “We are all right here feeling the same thing, and we have had enough.”

Kelsey Combe, a photographer, told the AP she posted “I Am Jane Doe” to confuse search engines and to stand with Doe.

She also revealed that AI had subsequently claimed she was the real Jane Doe, reporting back to users, incorrectly, that it was Combe who had sued the university.

“It was an interesting situation,” she said. “Because the second that I sounded the alarm about it… a lot of people were replying, ‘Well, you asked for this. You participated in this. What did you think was going to happen?’ And I was like, ‘Well, look at that.’”

Combe said she was ultimately able to get the result removed but not before receiving a unique insight into the extent of anger surrounding the allegations.

Emma Davidson Tribbs, founding director of the National Women’s Defense League, told the AP: “These moments… are encouraging more women to speak up and tell their stories.

“They are giving people a level of bravery and comfort to come forward and speak their truth. And they can be incredibly catalyzing for change.”

The anonymous accuser at the center of the Cornell case first reported the sexual assault she says she suffered to campus police on November 8, 2024, around three weeks after it occurred, giving a detailed account of her ordeal over the course of two days of testimony.

The university then launched an internal Title IX investigation in January 2025, conducting at least 12 hearings, but ultimately expelled only two of the seven accused students, according to Doe’s attorneys.

The remainder were given lesser administrative sanctions like temporary suspensions and even essay-writing assignments.

Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten initially declined to mount a criminal prosecution, saying he had no evidence that what allegedly happened to the woman on the night in question had taken place against her will.

He has since said her new civil suit contains allegations he had not seen before, including a transcript of an interview in which the plaintiff explicitly said she was “100 percent confident” she was raped.

Van Houten later reopened the investigation. “Seeking justice sometimes requires us to reconsider or reopen cases when we are provided with additional evidence,” he said.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has since placed her state’s attorney general, Letitia James, in charge of the matter as a special prosecutor in response to the mounting anger over the perceived failures to protect Doe and deliver justice.

Speaking to CNN’s State of the Union Sunday, Thomas Giuffra, Doe’s attorney, endorsed James’s appointment.

“Well, I think Tish James, at least what her office has told to me, is they’re reaching out to outside people to get involved, because the Attorney General’s Office doesn’t typically investigate crimes of this sort,” he said.

“So it sounds to me that people are being brought in who are experienced in crime and investigating crime. So, I think there will be impartiality. I think there will be fairness.”

Giuffra also said his client had been inundated with threats online and indicated that there may have been more than seven men involved in the attack.

“I’m not even sure we have everybody who participated in this assault because my client was blacked out during periods of time, and that’s reported in these statements,” he told Jake Tapper. “If you ask me, I believe there were more.”

Cornell’s president Michael Kotilkoff also responded to the uproar over the weekend, releasing an eight-minute video acknowledging people’s questions surrounding the university’s handling of the alleged rape.

“I want to acknowledge something that can be difficult for an institution to say,” he said. “We don’t have all the answers, but we are committed to investigating and finding the answers our community deserves.

“We must do everything we can to prevent what happened to Jane Doe and everyone before her and anyone after her from ever happening again.”