Cornell rape case exposes MeToo backlash: accuser's lawyer

An allegation of gang rape at the elite Cornell University horrified Americans. But when the alleged victim, known only as "Jane Doe," went public, she suffered a new kind of abuse, her lawyer told AFP.

The doxxing, threats and harassment targeting the woman, Thomas Giuffra said, expose a wider backlash to the MeToo movement that prompted a societal reckoning with sexual abuse by men.

"I think we've gone the wrong way in how sexual assault is viewed in this country," said Giuffra, whose client claims that seven male students assaulted her at the Ivy League college in 2024.

"The message is to other survivors: Keep your mouth shut, or this is going to happen to you."

Giuffra noted one "swatting" incident in October where police drew guns at the woman's home after a man gave her address in a hoax call claiming to have shot his mother.

"Somebody called my office and said 'drop the case, or I'm going to kill your wife,'" he said in an interview at his 29th-floor Manhattan office.

Giuffra has previously represented accusers of Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced Hollywood mogul at the center of abuse allegations that spurred the MeToo movement seeking to end impunity for sexual assault and rape.

"I thought we were moving in the right direction after MeToo, and there was just the backlash, and that set us back," he said, citing so-called "manosphere" influencers who oppose feminism.

In the Cornell backlash, he blamed "people who felt that the status quo was being threatened, people who didn't like the idea of women being treated equally, people who wanted to shut up women."

Despite the intimidation, Giuffra said his client wants her lawsuit to transform how Cornell and other US universities deal with sexual assault.

An estimated one in four female students experience rape or sexual assault at some point during their undergraduate studies, according to a 2020 study by the Association of American Universities.

Fraternities — male social clubs common on US campuses — are particularly scrutinised. The men accused in the Cornell case belonged to one, and the alleged gang rape took place at a fraternity house.

"It's not just about money; it's also about effectuating some kind of change," Giuffra said, saying any settlement with Cornell would include steps to "protect, educate, support students."

"I think she wants her story to be: I made a difference," Giuffra said. "Jane doesn't want some other woman, if God forbid this happens to them, to be left on their own, thrown overboard like she was."

Cornell has already announced several preliminary reforms to support sexual assault victims, and has commissioned an independent probe into how it responded in 2024.

Following her initial allegations, Cornell closed the fraternity and temporarily suspended the accused male students, two of whom were later expelled. Critics have said the response was too lenient.

New York's top prosecutor has also launched a fresh criminal investigation into the rape allegations after local authorities said they declined to prosecute in 2024 over a lack of evidence.

Giuffra praised the changes but said they were long overdue and inadequate: "There's an expression: that's a day late and a dollar short."

He said the accuser is still traumatised by her ordeal and has to take medication to help her sleep. Still, he praised her as a "brave woman."

"She's just trying to get through it every day at a time and trying to bring about some good," Giuffra said.