Among the allegations made in a federal lawsuit, filed in Nashville on Tuesday, against the University of Tennessee, which takes aim at the university's approach to sexual assaults perpetrated by its student-athletes, is a claim that Volunteers football players assaulted a teammate when that teammate, former Volunteers wide receiver Drae Bowles, attempted to help a woman who said that she had been raped by UT football players.
Bowles took the woman to the hospital and "supported her decision to report the incident to authorities," the lawsuit claims, per Nate Rau and Matt Slovin of the Courier-Journal. The alleged rape was perpetrated by Bowles' teammates on the Vols football team, A.J. Johnson and Mike Williams.
The woman - also a Tennessee student-athlete - was speaking with her coach, Tennessee executive senior associate athletics director Jon Gilbert and senior associate athletics director Mike Ward, when she received a text message from her roommate saying that she was, at that moment, watching "several football players jumping" Bowles.
The woman informed the UT staffers of the message from her roommate and was told that they would "look into it."
Bowles was allegedly assaulted again by teammates while at the team facility in the coming days. The woman reported this as well. She also told university administrators that former Volunteers defensive back Geraldo Orta had a "hit" out on Bowles.
Orta allegedly told university police officers that "Bowles betrayed the team and that where (Orta) came from, people got shot for doing what Bowles did," per Rau and Slovin.
Former UT star Curt Maggitt is also said to have confronted Bowles, who after "time away from the team," transferred to UT-Chattanooga, some months after the initial assault is said to have taken place.
The unnamed woman is one of five plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit on Tuesday, claiming that the university has fostered a culture that enables sexual assault by student-athletes, especially football players, and vilifies victims who step forward.
