LSU is at the center of a class-action lawsuit that claims the university failed to report sexual assault incidents.
A class-action lawsuit against LSU recently gained three more plaintiffs who are seeing damages from the school “in wake of a report detailing the university’s failures in reporting sexual misconduct.” The amended suit was filed earlier this week and includes “about two dozen pages outlining new allegations and also names Coach Ed Orgeron as a defendant.”
The three new plaintiffs include former LSU student Ashlyn Robertson, Corinn Hovis, and Sarah Beth Kitch. According to Robertson, “former football star Derrius Guice raped her after he showed up uninvited at a party she hosted in 2016.” She claims Guice “entered her room while she was passed out and that she contracted chlamydia because of the assault.” On top of that, Guice began harassing her shortly after the assault and spread rumors about her, and reportedly told her that he “had a gun with her name on it.”
Robertson eventually told her boyfriend about the assault. He was a football recruit and spoke to Coach Orgeron about it. When he learned of the assault, the coach “allegedly told the victim’s boyfriend to not be upset because everybody’s girlfriend sleeps with other people.”
Hovis alleges she was “was raped by a football player after she met him at a Tigerland bar in January 2020.” According to the suit, the football player was a “highly recruited quarterback.” In the suit, he is referred to as ‘John Loe.’ Leading up to the alleged assault, Hovis said she was “intoxicated and agreed to go back to the athlete’s home.” From there, she was “led to an SUV where she blacked out and was raped.” A friend of her attacker then “drove Hovis back to her residence hall, where her sorority sisters had to help her walk.” When thinking back to that night, she believes she may have been drugged.
Eventually, a Title IX complaint was filed against the athlete and he was suspended for three weeks. Additionally, he was ordered not to have contact with Hovis. However, the suit alleges he “violated that order by having his girlfriend contact Hovis on two separate occasions, but he was not disciplined by the university for ignoring the no-contact order.”
Kitch, the third plaintiff to join the class-action suit, claims an LSU professor told her she “wouldn’t get a job without him and pursued a sexual relationship with her.” To make matters worse, the professor allegedly told her to “wear high heels and asked her to come to his house at night.” Kitch also alleges the professor said, “women should spread their legs wide open and forcibly kissed her at one point.” A Title IX staff member also allegedly told her that it was “good she didn’t report the harassment because no one would have done anything.”
Sources:
Coach O named in lawsuit; more women file Title IX complaints
Coach O responds to Derrius Guice report, says quote attributed to him was ‘not accurate
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