Dive Brief:
- The University of Colorado has paid a $32,500 settlement to a woman who went public with the school’s handling of her sexual assault case.
- The victim, Sarah Gilchriese, filed a complaint last year with the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights alleging that the university violated federal Title IX prohibitions against discrimination on the basis of sex.
- The settlement agreement, reached between Gilchriese and the university's Board of Regents in February, was obtained by the Daily Camera newspaper under the Colorado Open Records Act.
Dive Insight:
If this is the only cost in this case, Colorado will get off pretty cheaply — especially when compared to its 2007 settlement of a Title IX lawsuit. In that case, it paid $2.8 million to two women allegedly raped at a party. In the Gilchriese case, the university assumes no liability or fault by signing the agreement. Gilchriese was sexually assaulted in February 2013 by an undergraduate male, and he was found responsible for non-consensual sexual intercourse by the school's student discipline office. His punishment: An eight-month suspension, a $75 fine, and a paper to write. It took four weeks for him to be removed from campus, and he repeatedly violated a no-contact order.