Emerson College responded to a lawsuit from a rape survivor on campus claiming the suit should be dropped because the school has no legal obligation to protect students from being sexually assaulted.
Jillian Doherty is suing her college for the allegedly poor way it handled her on-campus rape case, reports The Huffington Post. She says the rape intensified her depression and post-traumatic stress, which were so severe that she had to drop out of school.
"Absent unusual circumstances, there is no duty for a school to protect others from the criminal or wrongful acts of third persons," attorneys Harold Potter Jr., Katrina Chapman and Paul Lannon Jr. wrote on behalf of Emerson, in a filing along with a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
In March 2013, Doherty reported that she was anally raped in a dorm room on campus while she was intoxicated. The college ruled the alleged rapist not responsible after investigation, but he was expelled after she appealed the decision.
Supposedly the school didn't interview a key witness and allowed the accused to change his story, Doherty claimed, according to HuffPost, but the college doesn't agree with her claims in their entirety.
"I definitely feel like this whole time they've just been trying to get blame off them for handling it badly," Emerson sophomore Alysha Boynton tells WCVB. "They're just trying to have it be over with. They don't want to deal with it."
