The University of Southern California is facing a federal civil rights investigation after students filed a complaint that alleged the school ignored campus rape and failed to prosecute attackers even after they confessed.
One anonymous USC student involved in the complaint said that campus police had decided she wasn’t raped because her alleged attacker did not orgasm, the Huffington Post reported Monday.
“Because he stopped, it was not rape,” she was told, per the complaint. “Even though his penis penetrated your vagina, because he stopped, it was not a crime.”
The campus police did not refer the student’s case to the Los Angeles police department.
Another student, according to the complaint, was told by the university Department of Public Safety that women should not “go out, get drunk and expect not to get raped” when she tried to report a rape.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights is investigating potential violations of Title IX, the federal gender equality law that criminilizes a failure to respond to claims of sexual violence.
Photo: In a Friday March 1, 2013 photo, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill sophomore Landen Gambill, center, stands with supporters during a rally, on the steps of the South Building on campus in Chapel Hill, N.C.. Gambill, who faces possible expulsion after saying publicly that she’s a rape victim, has filed a federal complaint against the school, saying it retaliated against her, her attorney said Monday, March 25, 2013.
