Six women have filed a sexual assault lawsuit implicating five athletes, and accusing the University of Tennessee of perpetuating a rape culture among its student-athletes.
The federal lawsuit, filed by plaintiffs identified as “Jane Does,” accuses five university athletes of sexual assault.
The complaint includes former football players Riyahd Jones, Michael Williams, and A.J. Johnson, a current player identified as “John Doe,” and former basketball player, Yemi Makanjuola, a report from The Tennessean said.
One of the plaintiffs claimed she was also sexually assaulted by a sixth plaintiff, a non-athlete, during a football team party after she was given an alcoholic drink by former University player, Treyvon Paulk at the Vol Hall campus dorm.
The lawsuit likewise alleges UT football players assaulted one of their teammates, wide receiver, Drae Bowles, for helping one of the plaintiffs, “Jane Doe IV,” who was raped by Williams and Johnson in November 2014, to come forward with her complaint, the Washington Post reported.
The lawsuit further accuses the University for enabling an environment favoring its athletes, with a disciplinary system biased against non-athletes.
To give basis for its claims, the lawsuit cited over a dozen incidents, some of them unreported, involving football players engaging in underage drinking, armed robbery, assault, sexual harassment, and sexual assault against other women, most of whom did not come forward with their complaints, Yahoo wrote.
According to the lawsuit, the UT violated Title IX, a federal law which “prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity.”
Title IX serves to protect students against gender-based discrimination, and the lawsuit accuses UT of fostering a hostile sexual environment specifically targeting female students in its “deliberate indifference and a clearly unreasonable response after a sexual assault.”
The last statement referred to an incident of further harassment the sexual assault victim had to endure following the attack.
