‘I am beyond angry’: Ex-Butler student says school mishandled her rape allegation

Attorney Mark MacDougall recalls a Butler University official telling him over the phone that his client's parents were "very happy" with the university's handling of their daughter's rape allegation.

But nothing, MacDougall said, was further from the truth.

The young woman and her family say they are outraged by Butler's reaction in 2016, after the then 18-year-old woman said she was forcibly raped by a man twice her size. The woman, who is now 20, has filed a civil rights complaint, claiming the university failed to inform her of her options in accordance with federal law.

As a result, she said, evidence was destroyed, denying her the opportunity to effectively seek criminal charges against her alleged attacker, who had a prior report of sexual misconduct.

The woman, whom IndyStar is not identifying, said Butler’s fumbling of her case may have put other women at risk.

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Butler officials defended their sexual assault policies, and said they inform all sexual assault victims of their options. Officials said Butler had not yet received the complaint, and declined to comment on the woman’s case, citing privacy laws. Butler also declined requests from IndyStar to discuss how many sexual assault cases it handles each year and how they are adjudicated.

Similarly, the university police department did not respond to an interview request on how it investigates sexual assaults and coordinates with campus authorities conducting parallel internal proceedings.

Instead, Butler issued a written statement, which read in part: “We take every report of sexual harassment and sexual violence extremely seriously. It is vital for all members of our campus community to feel confident that all reports will be handled in accordance with our policy and it is on us, as a University, to not only create that type of environment, but also acknowledge the magnitude of a personal decision to report sexual violence and be committed to removing barriers to reporting.”

The woman has filed a criminal report, and says she hopes her actions will spur reforms to protect other women.

Following a year in which Butler reported 12 rapes, the young woman said she worries the small private school may be mistreating victims by trying to dismiss or keep their cases quiet — and that the university’s lack of response may be compounding the difficulty of addressing campus sexual assaults.

“Clearly, if I didn’t ask questions, nobody was going to tell me anything,” the woman told IndyStar.

The alleged rape

According to Butler’s Title IX investigative report of the woman’s case, which she provided to IndyStar, the sexual assault happened in the fall of 2016, her first semester of college.

The student told the investigator she had been ready to go to bed after returning to her dorm around midnight from a Saturday night fraternity party. She felt buzzed from drinking five shots of alcohol throughout the night, the student said in the report. She changed into sweatpants and took out her contact lenses, putting on her glasses to watch TV with a friend.

Later, she noticed a friend who had been drinking heavily hadn’t made it home from the party. So she returned to the fraternity around 2 a.m. to bring the friend back safely.

A fraternity brother — a 6-foot-tall, 275-pound Butler athlete, according to the report — told her he had one of her friends’ necklaces in his room. But when he got her there alone, the report said, he shut the door behind her. He took her glasses, she said, and threw them across the room.

She was in a long-term relationship and recalled in the report telling the fraternity brother repeatedly that she wouldn’t have sex with him.

But he pinned her down, the woman said, and raped her.

The man later told a university official, according to the report, that he was blackout drunk and didn’t fully remember the night. He said he had no memory of gaining consent from the woman for sex.

He recalled in the report a “freeze frame” of a sexual encounter, and he assumed they had sex.

IndyStar is not naming the man because no criminal charges have been filed against him related to the incident. He did not return a call seeking comment.

In the following months, the woman struggled with the trauma of the rape and to figure out what — if anything — to do next.

Because federal laws require equitable and safe educational environments, colleges and universities must address sexual assault allegations internally. They investigate cases, usually based on consent, and can sanction students through disciplinary actions such as suspensions or expulsions.

Law enforcement agencies can also investigate cases, but require the higher standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Higher education institutions are required to encourage people to report crimes to law enforcement and assist those who choose to. But a person also has a right to decline to report to police.

A student can bring a sexual assault case to either the school or law enforcement, to both, or to neither.

A victim’s rights

The day after the alleged attack, the woman told two of her professors she was raped.

In all, she said she recounted her story to at least seven Butler faculty or staff members, all of them in roles responsible for aiding her report of a sexual assault.

No one initially provided written information as required by federal law about the resources available to her, she said, including counseling and the option to file a police report.

In addition to its policy posted online, Butler officials said a booklet of rights is handed out to students. But the woman said she never received a copy.

In line with the Clery Act, one of the Butler employees reported her assault to Butler University police the day after it occurred — for statistical purposes, not for investigative purposes.

In its 2016 Clery Act data, the most recent available, Butler recorded 12 reported rapes on campus and within surrounding off-campus areas, including this woman’s case and another sexual assault on the same day.

Butler, a campus of more than 4,000 students, has a high rate of rape reports compared to many Indiana universities, according to publicly available data.

Indiana University in Bloomington, a state institution with a student population 10 times larger, recorded 21 rapes in its 2016 Clery Act numbers. Purdue University’s main campus reported 23.

Experts say Butler’s high numbers could indicate a positive trend of students feeling more comfortable with reporting sexual assault — a crime that often goes unreported — or a negative trend of the campus experiencing a high number of rapes. Or, possibly, both.

A professor told Butler’s then-Title IX coordinator, Stacie Colston Patterson, about the woman’s sexual assault report. The following day, according to the civil rights complaint, Colston Patterson sent the woman an email, asking to schedule a meeting to “see how I can help,” without emphasizing a need for urgency.

The woman’s parents said they were appalled by the “laissez-faire attitude” to the report of a violent crime.

“She should have been on her doorstep,” the woman’s father said.

‘Out of the loop’

By the time the woman and the Title IX coordinator met, more than 72 hours had passed since the rape.

Universities are also federally obligated to tell victims about the importance of preserving evidence. Experts say there’s a 72-hour window for collecting forensic evidence after a rape, which has proven critical in other rape cases that led to charges.

Unable to sleep in the tormented hours after her rape, the woman had showered and washed her clothes.

Still, she said some evidence may have remained when she notified Butler officials, including bruises on her chest, blood in her urine and any possible forensic evidence left in her attacker’s room.

But Butler continued to fumble its obligations, the woman claims. She said she felt as if she was left to navigate the process on her own. Counseling wasn’t offered to her at first, she said. She sought out Butler’s victim advocate, she said, after finding out about the resource from a friend.

“They didn’t really tell me my options,” the woman said. “For what I knew, this is what’s supposed to happen. But I felt like I was really out of the loop on a lot of things.”

The teenager said she was numb and in shock. She had never expected to be a victim of rape and didn’t know how to tell people what had happened, including her parents.

The haze of the trauma is why it’s important for victims to receive written notice of their rights and options, experts say, so they can refer back to it when they are ready or when they need it.

And beyond any moral obligation Butler had to inform the teen of her options, it's the law. Federal law requires universities to do so, and experts say institutions should go beyond a minimal effort.

“In an ideal situation, I would want that person to be given or offered that notice at least five times,” said Steven J. Healy, CEO of Margolis Healy, a consulting firm that specializes in school safety and security.

After the school’s winter break, the male student’s fraternity, Lambda Chi Alpha, was suspended from campus by its national organization, which cited violations including throwing parties with alcohol, according to news reports.

The Title IX coordinator, Colston Patterson, assured the woman in an email provided to IndyStar that the male student would not be moved into her dorm.

About a month after the alleged rape, the woman decided not to proceed with a Title IX investigation. She said she was overwhelmed, and she wanted the rape to just go away.

In an email the woman provided to IndyStar, Colston Patterson told her that the fraternity brother had been previously accused of sexual misconduct by another student.

The woman told IndyStar she felt as if her assault could have been prevented had the school acted on that report.

But then, within a few weeks, the woman said she heard the man may have been accused again of sexual assault by a third student.

“I am beyond angry,” the woman wrote to Colston Patterson, “and would like to move forward with my case.”

They met, and Colston Patterson was supposed to send her follow-up messages. But the woman said she heard nothing. She got no response to a text message. When she emailed a few days later, she received an automated response: Colston Patterson was no longer with the university. Someone new would be handling Title IX cases.

The woman said she was left feeling: “Hello? Is anyone here?”

Colston Patterson did not return a call seeking comment.

Attorneys step in

The woman got in touch with the new Title IX coordinator, James Gallaher, and told her story again. He sent her an email outlining resources and options — the first written information she said she had received.

“The burden should not be on students to know how to go through this process,” said Sage Carson, manager of Know Your IX, an advocacy group aimed at ending sexual violence in schools. “The burden should be on schools to inform students of their rights and how they should be executed. Often, they do not, and that is really upsetting.”

The woman was assigned an adviser for the Title IX process, but she said they never met. Her case went to a hearing in spring 2017. The woman declined an option to appear by video and went in person, she said, spending nearly a full day telling her story and answering questions alongside her accused attacker.

According to her civil rights complaint, the male student was expelled.

After the hearing, the woman told her parents about the sexual assault. They raised concerns about how her case was handled, met with Butler officials and met with MacDougall, their Washington, D.C.-based attorney. The lawyer told her about her options, including filing a police report.

“I decided this is not right, and this shouldn't continue to happen,” the woman told IndyStar.

Six months after her alleged rape, she sought to make a police report. But when MacDougall asked to schedule a time with Butler University police, emails provided to IndyStar showed police responded that he first needed to speak with Butler’s attorney, Roberta Recker.

“To have the criminal investigators answering to the university administrators seems to be a basic conflict,” MacDougall told IndyStar in an email. “How can the police do their job when the conduct of the people to whom they report may be in question?”

Recker followed up in an email with times when a police officer could take the report. When MacDougall sought updates from police, he said, Recker often responded.

The student who filed the complaint worries that the investigation has been compromised by the school’s actions and inactions. Seven months after her report, and more than a year after she said she was raped, the case remains under investigation, according to the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office.

She said she is waiting to hear whether the U.S. Department of Education will open an investigation. A department spokesman said the agency does not confirm complaints unless they are accepted for investigation.

A criminal case

Another rape case at Butler shows why experts say it is important for police to take evidence quickly.

In this case, the student’s roommate immediately called Butler University police.

Within hours of the rape, police had taken statements from both the victim and the alleged attacker. The victim was taken by police to a hospital, where she was examined and forensic evidence was gathered, according to the probable cause affidavit. Police obtained a warrant to search the alleged rapist’s room for evidence.

Former Butler University student Benjamin Schwettman faces a felony charge of rape. His court case is pending.

Butler University Police Chief John Conley said it was the first campus sexual assault case that led to criminal charges in the 2½ years that he’s worked with the department.

Of the 12 rapes reported in 2016, Butler police were not able to look into at least half, he said, because victims never reached out.

'The outcome matters'

In an emailed statement, the university said its policies “explicitly state” students’ options following sexual assault, and its Title IX coordinator also sits down with students to explain their options.

“We do everything we can to make sure all of our students feel respected and supported throughout the entire process,” the university statement said.

Butler runs training opportunities and prevention programs for students, faculty and staff, to try to raise awareness of the resources available to them, said Sarah Diaz, associate director for health education and outreach programs.

That includes recent efforts to reach out to student athletes, military groups and Greek organizations, to leverage their relationships to spread messages to prevent sexual assaults, she added.

"We’re really committed to addressing what we can with our students in the time we have them on campus," Diaz said, "and hopefully that dialogue that we’re creating carries with them beyond their graduation."

She said she hopes to explore how Butler might assess the experience of sexual violence victims and go through any campus processes: “We need to understand how to improve that experience for students. We need to create a safe way for students to share feedback with us.”

Butler officials, however, did not respond to questions about why the university counsel would get involved in making police reports.

And MacDougall was not the only person who considered that a potential conflict of interest. Experts questioned whether the lawyer was there to facilitate a police report or to protect the university's reputation.

Because Butler's police department is part of the university, its attorney may represent the department in certain situations, one advocate said. But she would find it "sketchy" for a college lawyer to step into a criminal matter.

"Why would they want to have any involvement with the criminal investigation?” said Laura Dunn, executive director of SurvJustice, a national nonprofit that offers legal aid to sexual assault survivors. "They are not law enforcement."

S. Daniel Carter, president of Safety Advisors for Educational Campuses, had a similar reaction:

“The outcome matters," he said. "Did they facilitate the police report, or did they impede the police report? What was the purpose of that intermediary?”