A University of Kansas football player who KU kicked off campus for allegedly sexually assaulting two women followed his former coach to another NCAA Division I football team.

It appears that happened without the knowledge of the new school’s top athletics officials, though it’s unclear exactly what — if any — university policy lapses enabled it.

In new court filings, KU says its actions aren’t to blame for the banished player’s ability to join the other school’s team.

The school the player transferred to has since kicked him off the team, disciplined the coach and changed admission procedures to prevent something similar from happening again, officials at Indiana State University said.

With KU, at question is whether the player was technically expelled or allowed to withdraw immediately instead, and whether the misconduct was noted on his transcript.

After learning the man joined Indiana State’s football team, the women accused KU of misleading them to believe he was expelled and questioned whether KU followed through with a nonacademic misconduct transcript notation, as university officials assured them would happen, according to Kansas City, Mo., attorney Dan Curry, who is representing both women in federal Title IX lawsuits against KU. With that understanding the women agreed to forgo a final hearing in which they could have challenged KU’s sanctions against John Doe G, as he’s called in the suits.

On Friday, in a court filing responding to the women’s new accusations, KU attorneys said the women misunderstood. KU reiterated that university officials wrote to the women that the football player was “effectively permanently expelled” — emphasis on the word effectively. KU said he withdrew, was not eligible for readmission and was banned from campus for 10 years.

“The most severe punishment the University can offer is to remove a student and prevent him from returning — which is what the University of Kansas did,” KU’s response said.

KU, in the filing, said KU’s actions didn’t enable the man to transfer and suggested other “more plausible explanations” to account for how he got on another college football team.

“He may have enrolled at the other university at a freshman level, without providing his University of Kansas college transcript; thus, the other university would not have been aware of the transcript and its notation,” KU’s attorneys wrote. “Another possibility is that the other university may have simply overlooked the notation on the transcript. Finally, another possibility is that the other university met with John Doe G and decided to admit him despite the notation. The University of Kansas does not know which, if any, of the above scenarios may have occurred.”

Indiana State officials did not answer that question, but the school has revised its transfer student application to ensure the situation is not repeated, said Libby Roerig, Indiana State’s communications director. Specifically, she said, Indiana State added two questions that weren’t on the application before:

• “Have you ever been suspended or expelled from an institution of higher education?” If yes, “Please identify the reason for this suspension or expulsion: Academic or Conduct/Behavior.”

• “Have you had any communication with a member of the coaching staff at Indiana State University to participate in Division I athletics?”

Indiana State Athletics also changed its vetting process for athletes, a process that traditionally is more stringent for those receiving scholarships.

“Coaches have been asked to vet walk-on athletes more thoroughly,” Roerig said.

Two women suing KU

The women, who have since left KU, were both on KU’s rowing team. Their lawsuits allege the university failed to adequately investigate their sexual assault reports and discipline the man to protect them from retaliation and harassment as required by federal Title IX.

Daisy Tackett was a freshman in fall 2014 when, she said in her lawsuit, one night after a Halloween party the football player raped her in his apartment at KU’s Jayhawker Towers, the on-campus facility where many athletes live. Tackett reported the rape to KU a year later, in October 2015, after another rower told her she’d been assaulted by the same man. Tackett did not file a police report.

Sarah McClure was a week in to her freshman year on Aug. 29, 2015, when the football player sexually assaulted her in her apartment at Jayhawker Towers, where he also lived, McClure said in her lawsuit, filed under the name Jane Doe 7. In October 2015, McClure reported the assault to KU and also filed a police report, though the report did not result in criminal charges.

The man remained enrolled and on KU’s football roster until March 2016. That’s when, according to the lawsuits, KU had finished its investigations, determined that it was more likely than not that he committed both assaults and disciplined him.

Accused player finds a new team

During KU’s investigation of the sexual assault reports, the accused player’s position coach, KU special teams coach Gary Hyman, was moved to an off-field role.

That move, announced by KU head coach David Beaty and KU Athletics in late December 2015, was “football related,” said Jim Marchiony, KU associate athletics director for public affairs.

Hyman soon left KU to become special teams coordinator at Indiana State, where he was hired in February 2016, according to Indiana State Athletics.

A few months later, John Doe G settled in Terre Haute, too.

He enrolled for the fall semester and walked on to the Sycamores’ football team, again practicing under coach Hyman.

Indiana State removed him from the team Aug. 25, university spokeswoman Roerig said.

Indiana State Athletics Director Sherard Clinkscales told Terre Haute’s Tribune-Star newspaper that he’d heard about accusations against the student the previous day, but didn’t say how.

“The upper administration of the athletics department was not aware of the allegations surrounding [the student], and upon becoming aware of such information, he was removed immediately from the football team,” Clinkscales said in the Tribune-Star report.

The student played two seasons at KU before transferring to Indiana State, but the Sycamores’ roster didn’t say that.

Unlike typical roster listings for transfers, the Indiana State football roster did not list the player as a KU transfer before his name was removed, the Tribune-Star reported. The roster also listed him as a freshman instead of a junior, according to the Tribune-Star.

KU and Indiana State officials declined to answer Journal-World and other media questions about when and how much Hyman knew about KU’s sexual assault investigations and disciplinary action against the player. The Journal-World was unable to reach Hyman last week.

However, Indiana State disciplined Hyman in connection with the situation.

He was suspended for two days, Roerig confirmed, Sept. 2 and Sept. 3, which included Indiana State’s home opener.

“Based on the athletic director’s inquiry into the matter, he and the head coach determined the disciplinary action was appropriate,” Roerig said.

Clinkscales told the Tribune-Star at the time: “We are 100 percent committed as a university, athletic department and football program to Title IX and all it entails… We have high expectations for all of our coaches, and this is not anything that is representative of all our departments. It’s an isolated instance. We just have to do a better job.”

The former player remains enrolled as a student at Indiana State this semester, Roerig said.

No transcript notation?

Attorney Curry said his clients were angry and confused about how the man who assaulted them got a spot on another school’s football team. They are now questioning whether John Doe G’s misconduct was ultimately noted on his transcript as they were told.

KU and Indiana State officials both declined to confirm last week whether his transcript has a notation, citing student privacy laws.

See related story Oct. 23, 2016: Regents drop discussion on statewide transcript notation policy for sexual assault findings

If the man had been technically expelled, under KU policy and past practice, his transcript should have a notation.

When a student is expelled for sexual assault, KU’s policy is to place a notation on the student’s transcript indicating he or she was expelled for nonacademic misconduct, without further explanation, KU spokeswoman Erinn Barcomb-Peterson said. The policy is only for expulsions, not suspensions, she said.

Federal student privacy laws allow schools to share details about misconduct findings with one another. Upon seeing such a transcript notation, officials from the admitting school can contact the student’s previous school to find out more before deciding whether to accept the student.

“On a case-by-case basis we would check with a transferring student’s previous institution, and they would do likewise” Barcomb-Peterson said of KU’s practice of following up on nonacademic transcript notations.

Previous students expelled for violating KU’s sexual harassment policy have received transcript notations.

All 13 students expelled from spring 2012 to fall 2015 had their transcripts noted, according to KU’s publicly available list of sanctions doled out to sexual harassment policy violators, which was last updated in September 2015. The next most serious punishment on the list is suspensions, none of which indicated transcript notations.

In March 18, 2016, letters emailed to both women, filed by Curry in federal court, KU vice provost for student affairs Tammara Durham said that a notation would be placed on the football player’s transcript.

The letters say John Doe G “has been effectively permanently expelled from the University of Kansas. He was withdrawn from the university effective March 17, 2016. He is not eligible for readmission. A notation will be placed on [the man’s] transcript.” He also was banned from campus for 10 years.

Durham also said, in a letter to McClure, that she personally met with the entire football team twice in fall 2015 and again in early March 2016 to provide training on sexual violence, and that KU’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Education Center director would return in April to give the team more training on sexual harassment and consent.

The football player requested that the charges against him be resolved without a formal hearing because he agreed to the listed disciplinary action, Durham said in the letter to McClure. “From the university’s perspective, this achieved what you requested and what was possible to obtain through the formal hearing process,” Durham wrote.

Based on that, both women agreed to close the process without the hearing, according to correspondence filed in court.

Curry has filed proposals to amend the women’s initial lawsuits with new accusations involving the expulsion and transcript notation questions.

“KU sent John Doe G a different letter that informed him he was being allowed to withdraw in lieu of expulsion,” Curry wrote in court filings. “KU concealed the fact that they … permitted John Doe G to withdraw in lieu of expulsion while leading Plaintiff to belief he had been expelled for fear of being sued by John Doe G.”

The court has yet to decide whether to allow the new accusations to be added to the petitions.

Federal regulation drives investigations

Title IX is the federal law that prohibits gender-based discrimination in education. It requires schools to investigate and adjudicate reports of sexual harassment — including sexual violence — to ensure students can access their educations in an environment that is not hostile.

The Journal-World is not naming the male student in this case because he was not arrested, charged with a crime or named in the women’s civil lawsuits, and KU student affairs documents including his name are not public record. Attorneys representing his family have said in media reports that the man denies the women’s allegations of sexual assault.

In accordance with federal Title IX guidance, KU finds responsibility for sexual harassment based on a preponderance of the evidence; that is, it is more likely than not that misconduct occurred — a lower burden of proof than the guilt beyond a reasonable doubt standard required in criminal cases.

According to KU student affairs letters to the victims, filed in federal court, KU’s investigations found the football player responsible for engaging in sexual intercourse with Tackett without her consent and for fondling McClure’s breasts without her consent.

The Journal-World does not identify people who claim to have been sexually assaulted but did so in this case because the women wanted their identities to be known publicly.