Robin and David Kowalski barely recognized their daughter Bailey when she was visiting home in White Lake, Mich., in the spring of 2015.

Their perennially positive daughter, who was about to finish her freshman year at Michigan State, was sullen. She had suddenly decided to abandon her long-held dream of being a sports journalist, and she refused to tell her mother, in whom she typically confided everything, why.

It was not until October, after months of erratic behavior, that Ms. Kowalski told her parents that she had been raped by three Michigan State basketball players that April. The incident left her depressed and considering harming herself. She dropped out of college for a while and received counseling. She gave up sports journalism for good.

Last year, Ms. Kowalski, 22, who is speaking publicly about her case for the first time, sued Michigan State in federal court for violating her rights under Title IX, the federal law mandating gender equity in higher education, as a Jane Doe. The lawsuit asserts that Michigan State mishandles sexual misconduct complaints against athletes. One woman said two football players raped her in 2009, but she was not advised of her Title IX rights, the lawsuit said, and another woman said three basketball players raped her in 2010, after which the accusations were not reported outside the athletic department.