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Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
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Student Says College Blew Off Her Gang Rape

BOISE, Idaho (CN) — A student who says she got drunk and gang raped at an off-campus party has sued North Idaho College, saying it refused to investigate it and then punished her for drinking "to forget what happened."

In a Sept. 22 complaint in Federal Court, R.R. says she fell in and out of consciousness while drunk, but recalls that three men followed her into a bathroom and took turns raping her.

"She could not remember if the first individual engaged in sexual intercourse with her, but she was certain that the second individual, who was not wearing a condom, did engage in sexual intercourse with her and that a third individual was standing by 'asking for a turn' and that said third individual also engaged in sexual intercourse with her," she says in the lawsuit. "She reported that her body hurt and that she felt 'disgusted with herself."

North Idaho College is in Coeur d'Alene, in the Idaho Panhandle. R.R. says she was raped on Nov. 16, 2013. She was a freshman, 17 years old.

She says she told several campus administrators, who failed to investigate, but instead ordered her dorm's resident assistant to "target and track" her "comings and goings" in and out of the dorm.

The school later contacted her to address her drinking issues and disciplined her for writing graffiti on a dorm window that expressed her feelings on how the school handled her case.

Any college that receives federal dollars is required by Title IX of the Education Amendments Act to protect students from discrimination based on sex.

R.R. says it was not until July 2014 that the college addressed the rape, when the college's director of student development and Title IX coordinator notified her that he would investigate the incident.

She calls the college's response deliberately indifferent. "NIC officials with authority to address the sexual assaults and to institute corrective measures did nothing to investigate the perpetrators of the gang rape and, instead, ignored the situation entirely, attempted to convince (R.R.) to move out of the dorms, and thereafter punished (her) for the actions she took in the wake of the emotional and psychological turmoil caused by the gang rape."

R.R.'s attorney Rebecca Rainey said in an interview that her client, who no longer attends North Idaho College, did not notify police after the sexual assaults. She said that such sexual assaults "happen nationwide."

The college did not respond to a request for comment Friday afternoon.

R.R. seeks damages for Title IX violations, pain and suffering and medical expenses.

North Idaho College is a community college with an enrollment of about 6,000 students.

Rainey is a partner at Fisher Rainey Hudson in Boise.

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