Stanford student says university let sex predator graduate

A student at Stanford University filed a federal lawsuit this week accusing the institution of failing to protect women from a violent sexual predator who was allowed to graduate despite several reported assaults on female undergraduates.

The civil rights suit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, comes only months after the sensational case of former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner who was released from jail after serving half of a six-month sentence for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman on campus.

In the latest case, the 6-foot-6, 200-pound assailant, identified only as Mr. X, allegedly attempted to rape the plaintiff in February 2014 after she refused to perform oral sex, then physically assaulted and verbally abused her.

The victim, identified as Jane Doe, had ended a relationship with Mr. X prior to the alleged assault. She later discovered that two other students had reported being sexually assaulted, battered or threatened by the same assailant between 2011 and 2014, according to the lawsuit.

Stanford officials “ignored those reports” but still ordered him to stay away from Doe. The university also banned him from campus for 10 years, according to the suit. He was nevertheless allowed to obtain a bachelor’s and a master’s degree, and Stanford did nothing when he violated the various orders, including the non-contact directive, the lawsuit said.

The suit claims that Stanford violated Doe’s right to equal access to educational opportunities under Title IX by allowing “a hostile educational environment on campus.”

“Women will not have an equal opportunity to succeed academically until the epidemic of sexual violence on campus ends,” said Rebecca Peterson-Fisher, the lead attorney for Equal Rights Advocates, one of three law firms representing Jane Doe in the action. “Institutions like Stanford need to be held accountable for their failure to recognize the severity of these crimes and to comply with Title IX.”

Stanford issued a statement this week saying the institution has “zero tolerance” for such “abhorrent and antithetical” behavior, but “without the cooperation of victims, regrettably the university is very limited in what it can do.”

“We have acted in this case and in all matters to protect our students,” said the statement, which did not explain what the comment about a lack of cooperation meant.

The alleged sexual assaults come amid scrutiny over the prevalence of sexual assaults on college campuses around the country, highlighted by the Turner case.

The 21-year-old former swimmer has moved back to his home state of Ohio, where he registered as a sex offender. But it was the words of his 23-year-old victim at his sentencing hearing that resonated across the country. She talked about the “two lives ruined” by Turner who “dragged me through this hell” during the Jan. 18, 2015 attack outside the Kappa Alpha fraternity.

Peter Fimrite is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: pfimrite@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @pfimrite