Rape lawsuits head for trial this summer

The lawsuits charge the University with not reporting an alleged rape and misrepresenting crime statistics. Two lawsuits filed by a former student accusing the University of failing to report an alleged 1994 rape should go to trial this summer, according to an attorney involved in the case. The suits also charge Penn with conspiring to misrepresent crime statistics in reports mandated by state and federal law. While a U.S. District Court jury will decide the case on its individual facts and merits, similar cases involving colleges and universities in the past indicate a mixed record for plaintiffs. The lawsuits against the University and the alleged assailant, as well as against Director of Police Operations Maureen Rush, charge the University with failing to protect the plaintiff and not reporting the incident to government authorities. The woman alleges that the male student raped her in his High Rise South room after they returned from Murphy's Tavern, and that Rush, then director of Victim Support and Special Services, contacted the plaintiff but did not offer any support or advice. The University, Rush and the male student have denied all the charges in the lawsuits -- including the allegation that the University did not include the incident in its annual campus crime report. The woman, who transferred out of the University last fall as a result of ongoing emotional and physical trauma her attorneys say she suffered because of the alleged rape, seeks an excess of $100,000 in damages. Both suits should go to trial together this summer, said Arthur Marion, an attorney representing the student accused of rape. The plaintiff's attorney, Jack Feinberg, explained that it is often difficult to convince juries that a rape occurred "unless there is some independent corroborate proof." "Usually the juries will accept the words of the rapist," he said, because such cases pit "one's word against the other." According to Marion, the jury will have to decide the case based on the testimony and facts presented. "The whole thing really is a matter of credibility -- who do you believe in this thing?" Marion said. "[Feinberg's] version of what occurred is so diametrically opposed to what our client says, so it's going to have to be sorted out." While Marion said he has "not looked at other cases" similar to these lawsuits, Feinberg explained that he has been consulting an inch-thick stack of paperwork dealing with other court cases involving allegations of student rape. Security on Campus, Inc., a King of Prussia, Pa.-based non-profit organization dedicated to preventing campus violence and crime and helping campus crime victims, provided much of the information, Feinberg said. A spokesperson said the organization was well aware of Feinberg's lawsuits and pointed to two recent cases -- Brzonkala v. Virginia Tech and Thorpe v. Virginia State University -- as possible precedents. In Brzonkala v. Virginia Tech, a student claiming she was raped by two male students in her dormitory room sued the university and her alleged attackers under the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, which addresses gender-motivated violent crimes. After a U.S. District Court ruled a crucial provision of the law unconstitutional and dismissed Brzonkala, the U.S. Justice Department intervened, maintaining that "Congress expressly limited the civil rights provision [of the law] to encompass only violent crimes 'due, at least in part, to an animus based on the victim's gender," according to the court brief posted on Security on Campus's World Wide Web site at www.soconline.org. Brzonkala has appealed the court's July 1996 decision. In the second Virginia case, Sheronne Thorpe, a student at Virginia State University, filed a lawsuit against her school and her two alleged rapists, claiming the defendants violated her civil rights under Title IX -- the 1972 gender-equity law -- and the Violence Against Women Act, in addition to arguing that the school did not sufficiently punish the male students involved in the alleged gang rape.

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