Miltenberg: “Dickinson College Graduate Sues, Saying School Failed to Properly Investigate, Punish Reported Sexual Assault,” Pennsylvania Real-Time News

A Dickinson College graduate has filed a federal lawsuit against her alma mater, saying the school failed to properly, and in a timely manner, investigate her report of being sexually assaulted, and ultimately issuing a lenient penalty against her attacker. Rose McAvoy said Tuesday she filed her suit in federal court because the college continues to violate students’ rights, showing “deliberate indifference” towards sexual harassment and assault on campus and has failed to comply with an agreement the college reached with her after she led a sit-in on campus earlier this year. In the suit filed Friday in the U.S. Middle District Court of Pennsylvania, McAvoy says when she was a freshman in the fall of 2017, she was on what she thought was a platonic “hang out” with a male student, who she said sexually assaulted her … McAvoy first made headlines in February during a four-day sit-in at the college, which ended when administrators agreed to students’ demands that included 18 changes to the college’s Title IX process, she said. But McAvoy said she decided to file the lawsuit because she doesn’t believe the college is living up their agreement. “The college is deliberately indifferent to a culture of sexual hostility and violence against women,” McAvoy said … “Because of Dickinson’s deliberate delays and willful inaction, Ms. McAvoy’s attacker was able to hurt at least two other students on campus after she reported the sexual assault,” her attorney, Andrew Miltenberg, said in a press release. “By filing this lawsuit, Ms. McAvoy is now bravely coming forward to hold Dickinson College accountable and protect other students from the school’s deliberate indifference to sexual assault.”

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