A former student who was sexually assaulted at Texas Christian University is suing the school using an unusual legal strategy, claiming it violated a consumer protection law in another state.
Sexual assault lawsuits against universities are difficult to win, often requiring proof that the universities acted with “deliberate indifference,” according to KC Johnson, a Brooklyn College professor who has studied lawsuits filed under Title IX of the Civil Rights Act.
As a result, plaintiffs have tried workarounds over the years. Even so, Dr. Johnson described a consumer protection claim as “highly unusual,” if not novel.
The lawsuit says T.C.U., a private university in Fort Worth, Texas, violated the Virginia Consumer Protection Act by misleading the woman, a Virginia resident, about the safety of its campus.
If successful, the lawsuit, brought by a woman identified only as Jane Doe, could broaden legal avenues for students frustrated with the outcomes of their complaints.
T.C.U. has argued that it does supply “services” in Virginia and that the woman wouldn’t have a complaint against T.C.U. if she had not attended school in Texas, asking that the case be dismissed or transferred to Texas.
Rulings on those questions are pending in a Virginia federal court.
In a statement, the university said it strongly disputed the lawsuit’s allegations and said the Virginia Consumer Protection Act claim “lacks legal and factual merit.”
The lawsuit claims the university’s recruiting practices are deceptive, but in its statement, T.C.U. said that information on campus crime statistics, including sex crimes, is made public and is available to prospective students.
The complainant has a powerful ally in Jay Jones, the Virginia attorney general, whose office wants the court to consider his brief in the case, arguing that the Virginia Consumer Protection Act, adopted to protect the state’s residents from fraudulent vendors, applies to out-of-state entities.
The attorney general’s office wrote that the law is clear: “Its prohibitions and protections extend beyond the borders of the commonwealth.”
The young woman at the center of the case attended high school in Virginia and, according to her lawsuit, was attracted to T.C.U. by a scholarship as well as the university’s representation that its campus was a safe place for women, the lawsuit said.
Her lawsuit said that she and her male assailant were at a party in fall 2024, her freshman year, where they both had alcoholic drinks.
After sharing an Uber back to the dorm where they both lived, the two made out in Ms. Doe’s bed for about 30 minutes until the male student left to go to the bathroom.
The woman fell asleep. She woke up to find the male student having sexual intercourse with her without a condom, the lawsuit said. It was an outcome she says she had neither consented to nor wanted, according to the lawsuit. She ordered him to leave.
The next day, the woman asked the student to meet and surreptitiously recorded him with her phone. In the recording, he admitted he had penetrated her without first seeking verbal consent, the documents said.
Following a hearing, a university panel concluded that the young man was guilty of sexual assault because he had sexual intercourse without consent.
The panel placed him on probation, ordered him to change dorms, required him to watch video trainings about “mutual consent,” and to write a paper of reflection.
Unsatisfied with his punishment, the woman submitted an appeal to the panel.
“The term nonconsensual sexual intercourse sounds so benign. But let’s call it what it is. In almost every state in America, nonconsensual sexual intercourse is rape,” she wrote.
“And what is the punishment for rape at T.C.U., according to the panel members? The punishment is homework!”
Following her appeal, the panel did not change its punishment.
After Ms. Doe’s lawyer sent T.C.U. a letter laying out what he viewed as its failures in the case, the university’s leadership overturned the panel’s decision, calling it inappropriate, and ordered the student suspended for two semesters.
By that time, the school year had ended and the young woman had left the T.C.U. campus for good.
The male student was not identified in the documents and could not be reached for comment.
The lawsuit argues that T.C.U.’s policies encourage rape. “Male students at T.C.U. know that nothing will happen to them for raping T.C.U.’s female students,” it said.
Shiwali Patel, senior director of education justice for the National Women’s Law Center, said that, like Jane Doe, many women had been unhappy with how universities responded to their complaints, noting that the Trump administration had weakened regulations governing Title IX.
“I think its important to hold educational institutions accountable for what their promises are to students and their families when students are choosing to attend,” she said. “It wasn’t the safe place she assumed it would be.”
Ms. Doe’s lawyer, Thomas M. Wolf, argues the case is simple, saying, “Why would they be treated any differently from another vendor who misleads a Virginia consumer?”
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