A former Oregon State University student has filed a federal Title IX lawsuit against the school and former head football coach Mike Riley for creating a "sexually violent culture" that led to her rape as a freshman in 1999. The suit alleges that Riley (currently head coach at Nebraska) and other staff and administrators fostered an environment and failed to correct actions that allowed members of the athletic program and others associated with it to commit sexual assault without repercussions.The woman, who has not been named, alleges in her suit that she was raped on October 9, 1999 when a young man handed her an open beer at an off-campus party. She took two sips and became light-headed, and vomited, at which point the man took her to another apartment where it is believed other football players lived. Eventually, she passed out. When she momentarily regained consciousness she was in a room with OSU jerseys and footballs on the walls.
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No more than two days later she reported the rape to OSU's sexual assault counselor, who she alleges discouraged her from pursuing her allegations and suggested it was her fault because maybe she "said yes," while also adding she shouldn't have been drinking. She left the school soon after she realized OSU's hostility toward her claims.The woman is coming forward now and claiming that a pervasive, sexually violent atmosphere was enabled by the school and Riley because she read about another OSU student's rape 15 months previous to hers. In June of 1998, Brenda Tracy was brutally "gang raped, sodomized, [and] robbed" by four men, two of whom were OSU football players: Calvin Carlyle and Jason Dandridge. At the time, Riley suspended the players for one game for what he termed "a bad choice."The woman bringing the suit learned she was raped in the same apartment complex as Tracy and she believes the man who raped her was Carlyle's cousin. Her suit alleges the school was deliberately indifferent and further alleges Riley deprived her of due process and violated her equal protection rights.[Oregonian]"She was being sexually assaulted by the young man who had offered her the beer," the suit says. "She was unable to move her arms or legs to fight back. She faded back out of consciousness."
She woke the next morning naked and alone in the same bed where the assault occurred, she alleges. She dressed and fled the apartment.