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Student Forced to Live Next to the Man Who Sexually Assaulted Her, Suit Claims

A former Iowa State University student is suing the school after employees allegedly tried to downplay the assault, forced her to live next to her attacker, and stopped the investigation over the summer months.
Image by Paul Schlemmer via Stocksy

A former Iowa State University student is suing the school after she says officials mishandled her sexual assault case and forced her to see her alleged attacker daily when they assigned her housing next door to him. Because of the school's "deliberate indifference" toward her following the assault, Melissa Maher, a Texas resident, is seeking damages for denial of benefits of the university's educational programs.

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According to court papers filed September 9, Maher says she was assaulted in campus housing in March 2014. She told authorities she was sleeping on a friend's couch after drinking at a party when she woke to find Patrick Whetstone assaulting her, The Des Moines Register reports.

After undergoing a rape kit exam and reporting the incident, excluding the assailant's name, to ISU police, Maher says school officials "actively discouraged" her from filing a formal report. They did, however, provide her with a student assistance advisor to help her "navigate University resources."

Read more: Undeniably Massive Study Confirms Campus Rape Is an Undeniable, Massive Problem

The student advisor, however, did not appear to take Maher's situation seriously, according to the suit. The lawsuit alleges the advisor did not make Maher aware of counseling services or alternate housing options and "downplayed the effect of the sexual assault, suggesting circumstances under which the assault could have been worse." When Maher withdrew from school to deal with the trauma of her assault, the advisor also incorrectly dropped her courses, which gave the plaintiff a GPA of 0.81 for the semester.

Meanwhile, Maher says Whetstone reached out to her two months after the incident and "threatened her." This prompted her to identify him to the school's Office of Equal Opportunity. Administrators launched an investigation in May, but put it on hold over the summer: "The Office of Equal Opportunity stopped its investigation in June of 2014, then resumed in August 2014," the claim states, alleging that ISU Police didn't even begin its investigation until summer was over.

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When Maher returned to ISU in the fall, she discovered that campus housing authorities had assigned her a private room one building away from her alleged attacker. "Once classes began, on a nearly daily basis, Maher saw the assailant taking buses to classes and leaving from the same bus stop as Maher," the suit states. "Seeing the assailant on a regular basis aggravated Maher's emotional distress and made it more difficult for her to heal from the emotional trauma of the sexual assault."

The school offered to move the plaintiff to another shared space, which she found unacceptable. Then, the suit alleges, "ISU informed Maher that the assailant had rights and should be allowed to stay in better housing than ISU offered Maher." She dropped out of school again shortly afterward.

Six months after the alleged attack, the university concluded its investigation, finding that "the evidence barely showed a sexual assault had occurred." According to local media, Whetstone was charged with third-degree sexual assault in January 2015 and goes to trial later this month.

Today, Maher "continues to suffer significant emotional distress," the suit states. She received notice for past-due payments "due to incorrect handling of credits as a result of her withdrawals," and as a result, her transfer to a new school was put on hold. She also "lost a scholarship at ISU … fell behind on her studies, and has suffered a serious set-back to her earning capacity."

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Earlier this year, Maher stood on stage at the Oscars with 50 other victims of sexual violence as Lady Gaga performed her song "Til' It Happens To You."

"I stood for every person who couldn't stand up," Maher told local media. "I had also decided if I could get one person to realize they're not alone, I was doing something to help."