A group of seven women is suing Dartmouth College for allegedly tolerating professors’ predatory behavior. The federal class action lawsuit filed in New Hampshire today accuses Dartmouth administrators of ignoring sexual misconduct complaints for over a decade.
The women say three former psychology professors "leered at, groped, sexted, intoxicated, and even raped female students," and they allege Dartmouth administrators knew about the "Animal House" culture in the Ivy League school's psychology department since 2002 but did nothing.
Dartmouth denies the charges.
Second-year graduate student Sasha Brietzke, 26, said she faced harassment from her first day on campus. She said one of the professors asked her if she had a boyfriend.
“Instead of asking me what I wanted to pursue in graduate school, it was, ‘What is your relationship status?’” Brietzke recalled. “I encountered a lot of demeaning and sexualizing comments — gendered harassment — throughout my first year.”
Dartmouth graduate Kristina Rapuano, 30, told CBS News she was raped by her mentor while attending a conference in California.
“I have no memory of this night,” Rapuano said. “I didn't even remember waking up. I had thought that I had just been drinking heavily. Now, I'm unsure."
The New Hampshire attorney general's office has launched a criminal investigation into the allegations.
Last year, Dartmouth, which is conducting its own investigation, fired the professors and banned them from campus. In a statement released Thursday, the school strongly disagreed with the allegation that they knowingly ignored the professors' sexual misconduct.
“Sexual misconduct and harassment have no place at Dartmouth,” wrote Justin Anderson, vice president for communications at Dartmouth. "We applaud the courage displayed by members of our community within the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences who brought the misconduct allegations to Dartmouth’s attention last year. And we remain open to a fair resolution of the students’ claims through an alternative to the court process.”
The lawsuit comes as U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is set to unveil new guidelines on how colleges and universities should handle sexual assault cases. DeVos is expected to narrowly define sexual harassment, allowing colleges to adopt a higher standard of evidence and holding schools responsible only for allegations involving misconduct that occurred on campus.
Last year, the Trump administration rolled back some of the Obama-era guidance on how colleges handle sexual assault investigations, scrapping the requirement that schools investigate complaints within 60 days, even if local prosecutors don't file criminal charges.
