There is a young Black woman at the center of the LSU sexual-assault story whose name is Kendall Francis. Before she became a viral video, a headline,
There is a young Black woman at the center of the LSU sexual-assault story whose name is Kendall Francis. Before she became a viral video, a headline, a debate, or somebody strangers decided they could investigate from their phones, she was an 18-year-old freshman beginning college. She has described herself as a first-generation college student whose family and friends knew she was going off to LSU. According to her account, what happened during that first year changed the course of the college experience she thought she was going to have.
As this case moves through a criminal investigation and the public learns more, there are some things worth understanding about what has already happened. Supporting a young woman does not require pretending that a criminal case has already been decided. The LSU football player identified in connection with the case, has not been criminally charged and maintains his innocence. It is possible to respect that legal reality without treating Kendall Francis as though she appeared on TikTok one afternoon with nothing behind her words.
1. This did not begin on TikTok.
The alleged assault dates to October 18, 2025. Francis says LSU Police came to her apartment afterward, transported her to a hospital, and she spent approximately seven hours there. She later filed a formal Title IX complaint in January 2026.
Her public videos came much later.
That timeline changes the picture considerably. Social media is where millions of people encountered her story, but it was not where her story began.
2. LSU conducted an institutional investigation before most of us knew her name.
According to internal university documents obtained by WAFB, LSU’s Title IX process found the student-athlete responsible for sexual assault and “forcible rape.” He appealed that determination, and the responsibility finding was upheld. His sanction, however, was changed to disciplinary probation without restrictions.
A Title IX finding is not a criminal conviction. University proceedings and criminal prosecutions operate under different rules and standards of proof, and the current criminal investigation must be allowed to run its course. But describing this as nothing more than an accusation posted online leaves out a substantial part of what has already occurred.
3. She says her freshman year was profoundly affected.
Francis has described depression, severe anxiety, significant weight loss, therapy and academic consequences. She told WAFB that she failed both semesters of her freshman year and said that losing that first-year experience was part of what ultimately pushed her to speak publicly.
Think about what college is supposed to mean to an 18-year-old. There are classes, friendships, discovering who you are away from home, learning how to navigate adulthood, and imagining what comes next. Whatever eventually happens in the criminal investigation, the consequences Francis describes experiencing are not small details sitting around the edges of this story.
They are part of her story.
4. A young student should not need a law degree to understand what happens after reporting sexual assault.
One of the saddest pieces of this case is also one of the most instructive. Francis says she believed that once LSU found the student-athlete responsible, the university would take the necessary steps toward criminal prosecution. She later learned that Title IX and the criminal justice system are separate processes.
LSU maintains that it followed its policies and procedures, and a Louisiana lawmaker who has discussed the case has likewise said LSU followed the law. The lawmaker’s concern is what happens afterward: whether students adequately understand their next steps once a Title IX process concludes.
There is a difference between giving a frightened young person information and making certain she actually understands it. Anyone who has ever been handed important paperwork during a medical emergency, death, crisis or traumatic event understands that distinction.
5. Reporting sexual assault is not one door.
This case demonstrates something college students and their families need to know. A hospital examination, campus police contact, a Title IX complaint, a university disciplinary proceeding and a criminal complaint are not interchangeable events. One does not necessarily cause the next one to happen.
That maze can be difficult enough for experienced adults to understand. A freshman encountering these systems while trying to remain enrolled in school may be attempting to understand medical care, evidence collection, school procedures, police reporting, confidentiality, academic accommodations and criminal law while simultaneously coping with what she says happened to her.
There is something deeply human about being confused in the middle of all that.
6. Black female students enter this terrain with additional reasons to wonder whether disclosure will bring help.
We should be careful with sweeping claims here because Black college women are not one uniform group, and much of the research specific to Black students remains limited. But the research we do have gives us reason to take the problem seriously.
A study involving 3,951 female students at four historically Black colleges and universities found that most Survivors who disclosed told someone close to them, while disclosure to formal sources, particularly law enforcement, was extremely rare. Students identified privacy concerns, the need for stronger Survivor services, greater education about sexual assault and alternative reporting mechanisms among the issues surrounding disclosure.
Another study of college sexual-assault reporting found that racial and ethnic minority students were less likely to formally report or informally disclose sexual assault. Research specifically examining women of color at a large public university also found that participants considered racism and sexism when thinking about whether involving authorities would actually increase their safety.
That context belongs beside this young Black woman’s story. Not because race tells us whether an allegation is true. It does not. It belongs here because support, trust, institutional history and expectations about how one will be treated can shape the already difficult road of disclosure.
When a Black girl or young Black woman finally speaks, she may not be arriving at the starting line with the same expectation that the crowd will gather around her.
7. We do not have to conduct a second investigation from our couches.
There are questions investigators should ask. There are records they should examine. There are conflicting accounts that should be tested, and Shanklin is entitled to the protections afforded to someone facing a criminal investigation. The East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney’s Office is now reviewing evidence and determining whether criminal charges are warranted.
But the public has another responsibility available to us.
We can refuse to turn every decision Francis made before, during, and after the alleged assault into evidence about her character. We can recognize that delayed criminal reporting does not mean there was no earlier disclosure, particularly when this case contains documented hospital contact, police involvement and a lengthy Title IX process. We can resist the familiar hunt for the perfect victim whose decisions make complete sense to people who were never inside her circumstances.
8. The disputed $1,000 allegation should be handled like a disputed allegation.
The Title IX materials reportedly contain an allegation from Shanklin’s side that Francis accepted $1,000 from a family member in exchange for not pursuing criminal charges. Francis declined to discuss that allegation with WAFB while the criminal investigation is underway.
That means the responsible position right now is neither to erase the allegation nor turn it into a proven fact.
Investigators can determine what communications occurred, who sent money, why it was sent, what was said around the transaction and what documentary evidence exists. Social media cannot responsibly fill those gaps with imagination.
9. Support does not require us to know the ending.
Sometimes people become strangely stingy with compassion whenever every fact has not yet been established. But human beings support people through investigations, trials, medical uncertainty and terrible family crises every day without pretending to know facts they do not know.
We can say to Kendall Francis: You deserved to understand the systems you were navigating. You deserved access to support. You deserved to continue your education without carrying the entire administrative burden of figuring out which institution was supposed to do what. And you do not deserve harassment for speaking about what you say happened to you.
None of those statements requires a jury verdict.
10. There are other young Black women watching.
Somewhere there is another student who has not told anybody yet.
She may be reading the comments underneath Kendall’s videos. She may be watching how quickly strangers examine Kendall’s choices, personality, photographs, social life and decisions. She may be quietly measuring what happened after this young Black woman spoke against what might happen if she speaks.
Research already tells us that perceptions of how women will be treated can affect reporting among Black college women. It also tells us that Black college Survivors have identified confidentiality, Survivor services, education and better reporting options as important needs.
So the way we respond to Kendall is not occurring in a sealed room.
A culture teaches people what disclosure costs by what it does to the people who disclose.
11. Kendall Francis is still a college student, not public property.
Going public does not surrender a person’s humanity. Virality does not turn someone’s worst experience into an invitation for strangers to hunt through her entire life looking for something that will make them feel entitled to dismiss her.
She is a young woman attempting to continue her education while a university process, criminal investigation, news cycle and enormous online audience converge around an intensely personal allegation. There will be legitimate reporting and legitimate questions as this investigation develops. There can also be restraint.
For those of us who have spent years listening to Survivors, there is something familiar here. The questions come quickly. Why did she go there? Why didn’t she do this? Why did she do that? Why did she wait? Why did she take that route instead of this one?
Sometimes we become so busy interrogating how a woman traveled through the aftermath that we stop looking at what she says she was traveling through.
Kendall, there are people listening.
There are Black women listening.
There are Survivors listening.
There are people who understand that navigating sexual violence, college bureaucracy, law enforcement, public scrutiny and your own life at the same time can be extraordinarily difficult. You do not have to become a flawless symbol for anyone to care about what happens to you.
May the investigation be thorough. May the evidence be handled carefully. May everyone’s legal rights be respected.
And may this young woman be surrounded by people who remember that before this became a case for the rest of us to discuss, it was her life.
You Don’t Find Your People By What They Post—You Find Them By What They Protect – WE Survive Abuse