A female student who attends Michigan State University has filed a lawsuit against the school that alleges three former men's basketball players sexually assaulted her in 2015 and was repeatedly discouraged from reporting the incident by faculty. The names of the victim and the accused were not named in the lawsuit, which was filed in a U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids.
Details of the incident reveal the woman was 18 when she encountered the players at a nearby bar. She was later escorted to a party commencing at an off-campus apartment complex which only contained a few people. The woman recalls feeling confused and upset, and tried to send a text message "but she could not control her thumbs to formulate a text," according to the lawsuit.
Shortly afterwards, the victim was taken into a bedroom where each player took their turn in raping her. The woman reportedly had "no intention of having any physical contact with any of the people present at the party." Furthermore, court papers reveal how the plaintiff "does not remember anything else until she woke up on the couch a few hours later."
Upon contacting the university's Counselling Centre staff a week later, the woman was warned that if she reported the assault to the police, she would face "an uphill battle that would create anxiety and unwanted media attention." The lawsuit continues to note how the woman "was so discouraged by the representations made by the MSUCC Counseling staff she became frightened to the point that she decided she could not report the rape(s) to law enforcement."
Michigan State University is accused of failing to comply with Title XI requirements by not providing the victim with equal protection under the law. The school is being charged with creating "an unwritten, official policy that created a culture in which male MSU athletes felt entitled and emboldened to commit sexual assaults without consequence."
