University of Kansas Punishes Man Who Admits to Nonconsensual Sex With Probation and an Essay

The University of Kansas (KU) has been under federal investigation for two months for punishing a man who admitted to nonconsensual sex with nothing worse than probation.

According to the Huffington Post, the assailant met the victim at a party at the school's Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity house a few blocks off campus. On the night of Oct. 18, 2013, he escorted her to her dorm, the same one where he lived, and they had sex, which he later admitted was not consensual.

The woman filed her formal complaint shortly after the incident and the assailant told local police that she said "no," "stop" and "I can't do this" before he proceeded to finish having sex with her. The local authorities have not prosecuted him for sexual assault and KU though community service was "too punitive."

Instead, KU put him on probation, banned him from on-campus housing, ordered he seek counseling and assigned him a self-reflection essay. The woman even said the local police questioned her when she said she had been consuming alcohol underage at the party.

She filed a complaint against KU in April with the U.S. Education Department (ED) and their Office of Civil Rights (OCR) began their investigation in July. KU is one of 76 schools under investigation for alleged Title IX and/or Clery Act violations relating to campus sexual misconduct.

"I was just so baffled at how little of a punishment he was getting," the woman told the HP, requesting anonymity. "People need to know how little attention this is being given when they do come forward to the university.

"You get serious consequences for plagiarizing, and you get horrible consequences if you have a six-pack of beer in your dorm. I think this is more serious than those, and it's given very little attention."

In many cases like hers, the two sides of the story are in direct conflict, but this one was by all accounts straightforward, making it particularly baffling for the victim's mother.

"Well, if those 99 percent are for sure losers, how many of them come with a full confession?" she told the HP. "It's not 'he said, she said.' It's 'she said, he confirmed.'"