LSU student says she was raped by a football player who is still on the team

A Louisiana State University student who claims a school football player raped her last year is speaking out about how the school handled her report and the lack of guidance she said she received throughout the process.

Kendall Danielle Francis talked on TikTok about the monthslong Title IX investigation that played out after she reported the October rape to the school. Two days into the current semester, she said, she received an email while she was in class to notify her that the student, who had been suspended for two semesters, had his punishment modified upon appeal to four semesters' probation. He would remain on campus and could continue to play football, she said.

"Now I am just trying to speak on my story, because LSU does really protect their athletes, especially their football players," Francis, who was 18 at the time of the alleged incident, said in the Sept. 14 social media post. As a result of the student's remaining on campus, Francis said, she moved her classes online.

Francis wasn't aware that filing the Title IX complaint was a separate process from filing criminal charges, a spokesperson for Francis said Wednesday.

"When she filed for Title IX, they [the university] did not tell her she could also contact the police and have them launch a criminal investigation," a spokesperson said. "She just assumed LSU would do the criminal investigation."

Francis' post, however, caught the attention of East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore, whose office announced it was launching a criminal investigation. He has requested "all reports, interviews, evidence, and other relevant records" from LSU, the university police and the Baton Rouge Police Department, as well as the coroner's office, which handles the evidence collection from sexual assault victims.

"This is now an open criminal investigation," Moore said Sept. 22 in a statement on his agency's Facebook page .

Francis' allegations come as accusations that members of a fraternity gang-raped a female Cornell University student for several hours have renewed questions nationwide about whether universities are doing enough to protect students from sexual assault.

LSU President Wade Rousse said in a statement that the university is cooperating with investigators.

"Let me assure everyone that this incident has been handled professionally and that LSU has strictly followed our policies, procedures and best practices, including the Title IX process, to guide our actions to date," Rousse said.

Title IX is a federal law that requires all universities that receive federal funds to put safeguards in place to protect students from sexual predators.

Francis didn't respond to several reach-outs from NBC News to discuss her online allegations or share the findings of the Title IX investigation.

In her TikTok video , Francis said she was assaulted at around 4:30 a.m. Oct. 18 "by a football player at LSU."

"That day basically changed my life," she said, adding that she "developed pretty severe anxiety" and that after an official diagnosis she began taking medication to manage it.

Francis said that she was taken to the hospital, where she had "a rape kit done," but that she didn't initially press charges.

"However, I did go through the Title IX process here at LSU, which took a really, really long time," she said.

Francis said she returned to school assuming the football player was suspended and under investigation by the police. She said she was in a class when she was notified via email that the alleged attacker was still "accountable" for the rape and would be on probation and allowed to attend classes on campus and play football.

"I was under the impression that because LSU found him responsible that LSU would do their part, that criminal charges, you know, would be pursued," Francis said in an interview last week with WAFB-TV of Baton Rouge .

Universities are generally not required to automatically alert the police when a Title IX sexual assault or rape investigation is underway, especially if the survivor requests confidentiality or chooses not to involve law enforcement.

Francis said in a second TikTok post that she reported the alleged rape this month to LSU police in an attempt to press charges. NBC News has reached out to the agency to confirm that, but so far there has been no response.

The Baton Rouge-based newspaper The Advocate reported that it had obtained the Title IX documents from the case and that they confirm Francis' assertion that the football player was found responsible for the rape.

Those documents, according to the newspaper, also confirm that his punishment was reduced on appeal from a two-semester suspension to four semesters of probation.

Some of the sexual activity between Francis and the football player was consensual, according to those documents as reported by The Advocate. Still, the football player admitted that he didn't specifically ask for Francis' consent before they had intercourse "and did not stop when he later asked and she was silent," according to the Title IX documents.

Meg Casper Sunstrom, an LSU spokesperson, didn't confirm the outcome of the Title IX proceedings or the discipline that was handed down to the student. Nor did she respond to questions about whether the football player was at LSU and playing for the team.

"Since there was no criminal complaint filed by the victim, LSU appropriately turned the issue over to our Title IX office as mandated by law," Sunstrom said in an email.

But she noted that the football player did "self-report" an incident involving his accuser with the LSU Police Department.

Dated Oct. 18, 2025, the report, obtained from LSU via a public records request, said the 19-year-old football player was at the school's football facility when he called police "due to concerns about potential accusations from the other party."

The report gave no indication what those potential accusations were.

The incident report says the football player told police that Francis had told him she was mentally unwell and had "thoughts of suicidal ideation."

The responding officer noted in the report that police had been in touch with Francis four days earlier, on Oct. 14, "regarding a similar incident." An officer determined that Francis posed no danger to herself and "seemed to be commenting out of spite."

This time, the report says, when police went to Francis' on-campus residence, "it was evident that Francis's mental state was unstable." The report doesn't detail the basis for that conclusion.

"She agreed to go to the hospital for further evaluation, and I transported her to Baton Rouge General Hospital for assessment," the responding officer wrote in his report.

Francis said in her TikTok post that she dreads the possibility of running into her alleged attacker on campus.

"So that made my anxiety really, really bad, because I don't want to face this person," she said. "I really just wanted to bring awareness upon this situation, because I'm just dealing with a lot right now, and I think that this story needs to be heard."