Student sues Michigan State over inadequate response to rape allegations
By admin - 2018-04-10 12:56:32

A female student is suing Michigan State for failing to properly respond when she told university officials in 2015 that she was raped by three Spartan basketball players.

In a lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, the woman alleges that Michigan State subjected her to a “hostile educational environment” and did not offer her the proper resources, ESPN reported. She further charges that the circumstances forced her to withdraw from classes, change her major and seek psychiatric help for fear of running into the three men on campus.

Neither the victim, who is currently enrolled at the university, or the three basketball players , who are no longer at MSU, are named in the suit. The reason, according to the woman’s attorney, Karen Truszkowski, is that the lawsuit aims to focus on how she was treated by the university. The rape was never reported to police, Truszkowski added, because the victim was younger than 21 and had used a fake I.D. to get into a bar on the night of the alleged incident.

The lawsuit charges that on the night of April 12, 2015, the victim, a journalism student with aspirations of becoming a sports reporter, met the three basketball players at an East Lansing bar. She said she left the bar with the players and was led to believe she was going to a party at one of their apartments. She alleges that while there, the room went dark at one point after she drank a glass of water and she awoke to being held down on a bed while the three players took turns raping her. The lawsuit states that she did not consent to the sexual activity.