Judge Allows Largest Title Ix Lawsuit against Baylor to Move Forward

By Sarah Mervosh
Dallas Morning News
March 10, 2017

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/baylor/2017/03/07/judge-allows-largest-baylor-title-ix-lawsuit-move-forward-opens-path-victims-join

Revised to include comments from Baylor University and a Title IX expert

Sexual assault victims at Baylor University have until the spring of 2018 to sue if they believe the school had lax and discriminatory policies that put them at a greater risk of being raped, a U.S. district judge ruled Tuesday.

The decision came as part of an order that allows the largest Title IX lawsuit against Baylor to go forward. Both sides will now be able to request evidence and call witnesses to give testimony out of court, a much-anticipated stage in the legal process for critics who continue to accuse Baylor of being secretive in its handling of the sexual assault scandal.

In some cases, Judge Robert Pitman decided, the two-year statute of limitations should not be measured from when an assault was reported, but from when the public first learned of Baylor's widespread failure to properly respond to sexual assault cases last spring.

Pitman's decision means that the court could hear claims from women who reported being raped as far back as 2004.

But he also limited the kind of claims those women could pursue, and dismissed other accusations, including negligence and breach of contract.

The ruling was in response to a lawsuit in which 10 women say they were sexually assaulted at Baylor in cases that span from 2004 to 2016.

In each case, the woman alleges she reported her assault to Baylor but received an inadequate response, from a lecture on the hazards of drinking alcohol to outright discouragement from filing a report.

"The ruling is [a] great leap forward for each of our 10 clients, and all Baylor victims," said Houston-based attorney Chad Dunn, who represents the victims identified by Jane Doe pseudonyms in the suit. "Young women impacted by the heightened risk Baylor caused now have until spring 2018 to bring their claims."

Now, Dunn said, "real transparency can come to Baylor."

The university released a statement Tuesday saying it was "encouraged" by the ruling.

"Baylor intends to continue to defend itself against those allegations that have not yet been dismissed. We will now have the opportunity to conduct discovery and ultimately present evidence on those remaining counts," the statement said.

It added: "As we have stressed throughout, our hearts go out to all victims of sexual assault at Baylor. We deeply regret the pain they experienced and continue to pray for their healing."

Pitman's order distinguished between two types of Title IX claims:

In the first, more traditional claim, a woman who was sexually assaulted accuses Baylor of failing to respond to her particular situation after she reported it to the school. In those claims, the judge ruled, the two-year statute of limitation should begin as scheduled — from the time an assault was reported.

Four of the 10 victims in the lawsuit do not qualify for that type of claim, the judge said, because their cases are too old.

But all 10 "Jane Does" qualify for the second type, referred to as a "heightened-risk claim." In that case, a victim alleges that even before her assault, Baylor's failure to investigate sexual assault claims and punish assailants created an environment that put her at a "substantially increased" risk of being sexually assaulted.

The judge agreed with the victims' lawyers that it was "plausible" that the women did not have enough information to know of the broader culture until last spring, when Baylor's sexual assault scandal became public.

"Plaintiffs have not alleged that Baylor had knowledge of accusations against their specific assailants prior to their initial assaults, but what they have alleged — a widespread pattern of discriminatory responses to female students' reports of sexual assault — is arguably more egregious," Pitman wrote.

It's possible the ruling could open up a path for more sexual assault victims to come forward.

Rayla Allison, a Title IX expert at the University of Minnesota, warned that those cases would have to be evaluated individually to see if they fit the judge's parameters.

Title IX by itself does not have a statute of limitations, she said.

But the time frame for bringing claims varies by state. State law is borrowed to determine how long a victim has to file suit, according to Know Your IX, a survivor-led organization. That translates to two years in Texas.

At least five other Title IX lawsuits against Baylor are pending.

CORRECTION, 10:22 p.m., March 7, 2017: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Texas, was possibly the only region in the country that applied a statute of limitation to Title IX cases. The statute of limitations for Title IX cases varies by state.