NEWS ANALYSIS: Rape suits could affect crime probe

The suits touch on the same issues that spurred a federal investigation. The two lawsuits recently filed in federal court by a former student who claims she was raped in November 1994 -- along with two ongoing federal and state investigations into the University's crime reporting practices -- all add up to one big headache for University officials. But attorneys for the University, Director of Police Operations Maureen Rush and the male student who stands accused of rape adamantly denied all the charges in the civil suits and said they plan a vigorous fight in court. The plaintiff -- who waited two years to initiate the civil suit and dropped out of Penn because of physical and psychological distress caused by the alleged rape, according to her lawyer -- seeks $200,000 in compensatory damages in each lawsuit. U.S. District Court Judge Jay Waldman will decide approximately one year from now whether the University and Rush falsified crime statistics to federal and state authorities and failed to protect and offer assistance to the woman after she was allegedly raped Nov. 18, 1994 in the male student's High Rise South room. The U.S. Department of Education and the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office have been investigating the University's crime reporting practices recently after hearing charges that Penn has consistently under-reported its crime statistics by defining "on-campus" crime too narrowly. Although government officials refused to comment on the investigations upon learning of the lawsuits, the outcome of the suits may affect the investigations. In order to avoid a major blow to the University's image, defense attorneys must prove that a rape never happened in the first place, since statistics from the University's 1996 campus crime report -- as required by the 1990 Federal Student Right-to-Know and Campus Security Act -- show no on-campus rapes occurring in 1994. University Police records obtained recently by The Daily Pennsylvanian also list no on- or off-campus rapes in November 1994. An article from the Nov. 21, 1994 edition of the DP, however, quotes Rush -- who was then director of University Police's Victim Support and Special Services division -- as saying University Police were "handling a confidential [sexual assault] report involving a student on campus." The defense's official answer to the original lawsuit disputes the date that the plaintiff contacted Rush. The lawsuit states that Rush came to the plaintiff's room the evening after the alleged rape to take a report shortly after the plaintiff notified the Victim Support office. Rush's response denies that the plaintiff contacted the office on Nov. 18, 1994, but admits that Rush "responded to a call regarding plaintiff on Nov. 20, 1994." The case could also hinge on whether the plaintiff and the alleged rapist drank too much alcohol that night at Murphy's Tavern at 44th and Spruce streets. Attorney Jack Feinberg, who is representing the plaintiff, maintained that neither the plaintiff -- an 18-year-old freshman at the time of the incident -- nor the alleged rapist was inebriated at the time of the incident, even though the suits state that the rape occurred after the two returned from drinking at Murph's. Feinberg explained that the plaintiff would have no legal basis for the lawsuits if the two had been drunk. Yet the suit nonetheless charges the University with "negligence and carelessness" in failing to prevent the plaintiff from being served alcohol at Murph's and failing to report the tavern to police for liquor law violations. The lawsuits also contain several charges that rely on the doctrine of in loco parentis, which has been largely abandoned in universities across the nation. One such charge claims the University did not "have rules and regulations to prevent unwed males and females from being alone in the same room without adequate supervision." Arthur Marion, a lawyer for the student accused of rape, contended that the plaintiff's two-year wait to file the lawsuit raises doubts about the strength of the case.

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