Law Student Accuses University of San Diego of Mishandling Rape Investigation

A University of San Diego law student has filed a lawsuit against the school, claiming college officials discouraged her from reporting an alleged rape by two fellow students.

The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights is investigating how the college handled reports of the same incident.

The lawsuit, filed Feb. 13, says the 29-year-old woman was raped by two men in the bathroom at an off-campus party in May 2013. The woman told NBC 7 she did not immediately report the incident to police because she was afraid.

"It's horrifying and stigmatizing. I didn't want to be that girl that got raped. Nobody does," she said.

But when she discovered one of her alleged attackers was in her evidence class the next fall semester, she informed her professor.

The court papers and the woman's attorney, Dan Gilleon, say the professor and university officials discouraged her from reporting the incident to the San Diego Police Department and from pursuing administrative action against the men.

"I felt that they didn't really care," she said. "They made me feel like there wasn't very much they could or would do for me." 

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"They informed Doe that female students alleged sexual assault 'all the time,' and specifically mentioned a particular (but unnamed) female student that was 'handling it on her own,'" the lawsuit says.

David Bristol, an attorney who represented the two accused students, said USD took her allegations very seriously, conducting their own investigation through the school police department.

School officials appointed a three-member panel to hold an administrative hearing on the incident.

“They heard all the evidence and heard from witnesses and based on everything they heard, they determined she had not met her burden to show my clients had violated any policies and procedures of the university,” said Bristol.

But the lawsuit claims hearing officers allowed “false evidence” to be introduced about the woman’s sexual history and interests.

“They had their friends come up to me, you know, up there during this hearing and call me a slut and say, you know, I'm known to be a whore,” said the woman, who is referred to in court papers as Jane Doe. “And these are people that don't even know me.”

When the panel determined the men were not responsible for the allegations, the woman elected not to appeal the decision, Bristol said.

"There was no investigative aspect to the hearing. There was no fact-checking. It was basically he-said; she-said and what I said wasn't enough for them. Actually, it was he-said she-said and they were allowed to present a few witnesses who called me a whore and that was basically the administrative hearing," the woman said. 

A spokeswoman for USD said the university is limited in what it can say about the specifics of the lawsuit.

"We respect the privacy of all of our students, especially related to sensitive issues of this nature, and we do not discuss student matters like this publicly," Pamela Gray Payton wrote in an email response to questions from NBC7.

The alleged victim said the university wouldn't explain their investigative process to her and refused to ensure her confidentiality if she identified her alleged rapists.

"I just felt very alone," said the woman who asked not to be identified. "I felt alone and unsupported and I didn't know what to do because nobody was helping me through the situation. I was completely on my own."

The woman said she was forced to drop out of school for a time and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result.

When she returned a few months later, she had a no contact order against the two men, although it has changed her interactions with the school itself. She said she only goes there for classes and avoids networking and social events with other students.

“I've already lost so much, and so much of my life has been destroyed,” she told NBC 7. "I had to leave my work briefly just to recover emotionally from this. At this point, there is very little left for me to lose." 

Her attorney Dan Gilleon said his client decided to file this lawsuit to help women who have been too afraid to report sexual assaults against them.

"She said, 'Listen, I'm going to come forward. I'm going to be a lawyer sometime soon. I'm going to be representing victims, and I'm not going to take the path that USD was kind of encouraging for me,'" Gilleon said.

She has since reported the case to the San Diego Police Department, which opened its own investigation, the court document says. No charges have been filed against the men.

"They're still walking around campus when I'm going to class. They're still there. I have to see them whether I like it or not." 

The woman told NBC7 she didn't think she move forward with her life or be someone who is supposed to be upholding the law as an attorney without coming forward and speaking out.

"And maybe more women can start to feel like they can report these things because no woman should have to go through what I went through," she said. "No student signs up to be raped at school." 

A U.S. Education Department investigator told NBC 7 their investigation into how USD handled the incident started last December.

The university could lose millions of dollars in federal funding if the department finds it has policies and procedures that violate laws regarding sexual violence.

"If you're gonna take state and federal money -- millions and millions of dollars they take of state and federal money -- then you have to comply with state and federal law," said Gilleon, "which says that when a woman comes forward and says she's been raped, you need to embrace her, you need to protect her, you've got to make sure that she feels safe."

He said the school has about one month to respond to the lawsuit against them.

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