The University of Connecticut has filed its reply in the federal sex assault case involving three current and two former students.
Richard Orr, general counsel for UConn, said in a statement that the university’s response to the civil complaint filed in November is part of the “normal course of proceedings required by court rules.”
“As outlined in the filing, UConn denies several of the plaintiffs’ allegations that we know to be factually inaccurate,” Orr said in the statement. “There are many other allegations for which we do not yet have enough information to respond — as is common at this very preliminary stage of a lawsuit.”
The lawsuit contends that that UConn failed to meet its legal obligations under Title IX in the treatment of plaintiffs who alleged that they were raped or sexually harassed while at UConn. Gloria Allred, the attorney for the plaintiffs could not immediately be reached for comment.
The lawsuit seeks compensatory damage for the young women for their emotional distress resulting from what they have called UConn’s “deliberate indifference” and asks the court to order UConn to revise its policies and procedures to bring them into compliance with Title IX.
Orr said in his statement that the university “strongly denies that it acted with deliberate indifference to any of the plaintiffs. That is the basic legal claim underlying each plaintiff’s allegations, and the University vigorously disputes that claim.”
Orr said that “Federal privacy law precludes us from publicly disputing the details of the plaintiffs’ allegations or disclosing other information from student records, but UConn will be able to rely on those records to defend itself in the litigation at the appropriate time.”
By Kathleen Megan, Hartford Courant