Eight days ago, I wrote that LSU’s hands were not tied after its Title IX office reportedly upheld an administrative finding classified as sexual assault–forcible rape.

That column did not argue that a university disciplinary finding should automatically produce an arrest or criminal charge. It did not treat LSU’s administrative process as a criminal court. It asked a narrower institutional question: After LSU developed that information, did the university provide the notice required by its own East Baton Rouge Parish power-based-violence memorandum of understanding?

Before publication, Tiger Rag asked LSU directly whether it had provided the notice required by the agreement or believed it had otherwise satisfied the MOU. LSU Chief Communications Officer Meg Sunstrom supplied President Wade Rousse’s previous public statement and the initial LSU Police report arising from LSU defensive end Damien Shanklin’s contact with police. LSU did not answer the MOU question directly.

The report LSU supplied is unambiguous about its classification. It describes a noncriminal mental-health call. It does not document a rape allegation, a criminal sexual-assault investigation or the collection of a sexual-assault kit. It references a voluntary statement and a supplemental report that LSU did not provide to Tiger Rag.

ESPN’s Paula Lavigne reported Thursday after reviewing Title IX documents and police reports that the documentary record extends beyond the initial report LSU furnished to Tiger Rag. According to ESPN, LSU student Kendall Francis, who has identified herself publicly, texted Shanklin after leaving his residence that she wanted to go “to the hospital for a rape kit.” ESPN also reported that a police report notes officers transported Francis to a hospital, where she said she underwent a rape kit.

ESPN did not identify which police report contained that notation. The initial report LSU sent Tiger Rag does not contain it. ESPN’s reporting therefore broadens the public record; it does not rewrite the document LSU supplied or establish precisely what LSU Police knew at each point on Oct. 18, 2025.

The question is no longer satisfied by saying campus police had contact with the people involved. A case now consuming Cornell University shows why the content and movement of information are more important than the existence of contact.

What prosecutors received at Cornell

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul appeared Friday with Attorney General Letitia James and demanded to know why a Cornell student’s explicit rape allegation apparently did not reach prosecutors intact.

A former Cornell student identified in court papers as Jane Doe alleges that several men raped her at the Chi Phi fraternity house in October 2024 after she consumed alcohol and drugs. She filed a civil lawsuit in September against seven men, the fraternity, Cornell and other parties. The men have denied wrongdoing. No one has been criminally charged, and the allegations remain subject to investigation and civil litigation.

The student spoke to Cornell University Police for hours. Reporting based on university records says the interview produced a transcript of approximately 120 pages. Prosecutors later received a six-page statement prepared from that interview and signed by the student.

Hochul said Friday that the student had told campus police she was completely confident she had been raped, but that assertion did not appear in the account sent to the Tompkins County District Attorney’s Office. The governor said the local prosecutor did not interview the student or others involved and did not request the full transcript.

“In what world would the police learn from the victim that she had literally been gang-raped” and fail to elevate the allegation, Hochul asked.

Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten initially declined to prosecute and later reopened the investigation. Hochul appointed James as special prosecutor. James said her office would conduct a process guided by the facts and the law, and Cornell agreed to an outside review of the university’s handling of the case.

New York’s response does not presume that the accused men are guilty. It recognizes that a prosecutor’s decision can be only as informed as the record the prosecutor receives. The state is now examining what campus police gathered, what they transmitted and what was omitted.

What LSU’s initial report says—and does not say

The Cornell and LSU cases involve different allegations, people, jurisdictions and investigative histories. The relevant comparison is the institutional handoff.

Francis has publicly alleged that the LSU encounter occurred at approximately 4:30 a.m. on Oct. 18, 2025. The initial police report LSU provided to Tiger Rag says an officer responded to the football operations facility at approximately 12:13 p.m., after Shanklin initiated contact. LSU’s football team was already playing at Vanderbilt in Nashville.

The officer wrote that Shanklin wanted to document an encounter because he was concerned about potential accusations and Francis’ mental state. After receiving information that raised concerns about her welfare, officers contacted Francis at her campus residence and transported her to Baton Rouge General for an evaluation. The report classified the matter as noncriminal and mental-health related.

The report does not say Shanklin told officers that Francis was accusing him of rape. It does not say Francis reported a sexual assault to the officers. It does not mention a sexual-assault kit. Tiger Rag will not attribute information to that document that is not there.

ESPN’s review of additional police reports and Title IX records adds important information. ESPN reported that Francis’ texts referred to obtaining a rape kit and that a police report notes she said she underwent one after officers transported her to the hospital. ESPN also reported that officers went to the football operations center because Shanklin wanted to make a report concerning potential accusations and Francis’ mental health.

Those additional records may help establish what LSU Police knew beyond the face of the initial report. The available reporting does not establish whether officers treated the information as a criminal sexual-assault allegation, opened a criminal investigation, interviewed Francis about the alleged assault, obtained or tested the kit, interviewed other witnesses or consulted prosecutors in October 2025.

WAFB I-TEAM reporter Chris Nakamoto reported that LSU’s Title IX office did not receive the police report until Dec. 9, nearly two months after the police contact. The subsequent administrative investigation developed a record that the initial report did not contain.

What LSU’s Title IX process found

According to the records reviewed by ESPN, Francis and Shanklin agreed that their initial sexual contact was consensual but gave conflicting accounts of what followed. Francis said Shanklin penetrated her without consent and continued after she told him to stop. Shanklin said he stopped when she told him to stop.

LSU’s hearing panel found Shanklin responsible for conduct classified under university policy as sexual assault–forcible rape and imposed a one-year suspension from campus and university activities. On appeal, Administrative Law Judge Janet Waguespack upheld the responsibility finding but reduced the sanction to four semesters of disciplinary probation without restrictions.

ESPN reported that Waguespack described the original sanction as “exceedingly harsh” and wrote that Shanklin’s conduct, “although nonconsensual,” reflected an “error in judgment” rather than deliberate disregard for Francis’ dignity and autonomy.

“Disciplinary probation without restrictions” is LSU’s term for a conditional disciplinary status. It is not a suspension, and the sanction itself does not prohibit participation in football. LSU Athletics could impose a separate restriction, but the available record does not establish that it did. Another violation during the probationary period can jeopardize the student’s standing with the university.

The university’s role in Shanklin’s return to the football team became clearer during Lane Kiffin’s Sept. 28 press conference. Tiger Rag editor Glenn Guilbeau asked how Shanklin had been able to return after he was not with the team when preseason camp began.

“I can’t comment much on the Shanklin situation except for we just followed what university told us to,” Kiffin said. “We’re not allowed to do anything else in those situations.”

Kiffin did not identify the university official or office that gave the direction, describe what LSU instructed the football program to do or say when the direction was issued. His answer placed the decision above the football staff: The program followed the university’s instruction.

Shanklin’s attorneys, Grant L. Willis and Morgan H. Johnson, said Thursday that he maintains his innocence and will cooperate fully with the criminal investigation.

“What has been portrayed on social media and in the news thus far, is not a full account of all of the facts and circumstances surrounding this situation,” the attorneys said.

Shanklin has not been arrested or criminally charged. LSU’s responsibility finding is an administrative determination made under a lower burden of proof than the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard required for a criminal conviction. This column does not declare that Shanklin committed a crime or predict whether prosecutors will charge him.

The MOU question has narrowed

The East Baton Rouge Parish power-based-violence agreement says each participating institution shall promptly notify law-enforcement agencies of reported power-based violence involving a possible felony on its campus. It permits that notice to be given without identifying the alleged victim or witnesses.

LSU, LSU Police, the Baton Rouge Police Department, the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office and the district attorney’s office are among the parties. The agreement also addresses investigative responsibility, communication, evidence preservation and information sharing.

ESPN’s reporting provides evidence that LSU Police records contained more information than the initial report supplied to Tiger Rag. That may support an argument that the law-enforcement agency with jurisdiction possessed sufficient information to satisfy the MOU’s initial-notice requirement. The public record still does not establish when LSU Police received each piece of information, whether the supplemental report contained a sexual-assault allegation or whether the university regarded the October police response as formal compliance with the agreement.

The later Title IX proceeding created a separate body of evidence. LSU investigators interviewed the students, evaluated their conflicting accounts and assembled a record sufficient for a responsibility finding. An administrative law judge upheld that finding on appeal.

WAFB reported that the final ruling was not referred to law enforcement for criminal prosecution. LSU has not publicly established that LSU Police or the district attorney’s office received the Title IX investigative record, the hearing panel’s findings or the appellate decision before Francis filed a criminal complaint in September.

Federal privacy law did not require LSU to make that disclosure, but it did not prohibit a limited one. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act regulations permit a university to disclose the final result of a disciplinary proceeding after finding that a student violated institutional policy in connection with a crime of violence. The permitted disclosure is narrow and does not authorize LSU to identify the complainant or student witnesses without their consent.

What reached East Baton Rouge prosecutors?

Tiger Rag interviewed East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore on Sept. 22, the day his office said it became aware of the allegation. Moore requested reports, interviews, evidence and other relevant records from LSU, LSU Police, Baton Rouge Police, the East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner’s Office and any other agency possessing information.

That review is now underway. It is independent of LSU’s Title IX proceeding, and the administrative finding does not compel Moore’s office to file a criminal charge.

State Rep. Vanessa Caston LaFleur told WAFB on Sept. 28 that LSU had followed the law and its procedures.

“This is not about whether or not LSU did what they were supposed to do,” LaFleur said. “They did what they were supposed to do.”

Tiger Rag called LaFleur’s office, left a message with a staff member and emailed a question asking for the basis of that conclusion. She did not respond.

LSU may possess records that resolve the chronology. The voluntary statement, supplemental police report and body-camera footage referenced by the initial report have not been made public. The university also may be able to document an investigation, evidence preservation, communication with Francis or consultation with prosecutors that has not yet entered the public record.

What LSU has supplied publicly does not answer those questions. The initial report establishes police contact and a mental-health response. ESPN’s reporting establishes that additional police and Title IX records contain references to a rape kit and far more detail about the alleged encounter. WAFB establishes that the final administrative ruling was not referred to law enforcement for criminal prosecution. Moore’s statement establishes that his office became aware of the allegation on Sept. 22, 2026, and then began collecting the record.

Cornell shows why those pieces cannot be collapsed into the sentence “campus police were involved.” The inquiry concerns what information police possessed, what they investigated, what evidence they preserved and what prosecutors ultimately received.

The criminal review may provide those answers. Until it does, LSU can point to police contact. It still has not publicly established that the information developed through Title IX reached the law-enforcement officials responsible for deciding whether a crime could be proved.