photo by: Mike Yoder

Jim McClure, of Wilmette, Ill., speaks on behalf of his daughter, Sarah McClure, at a press conference Thursday in Kansas City, Mo. Sarah McClure, under the name Jane Doe 7, is suing Kansas University for failing to properly address her sexual assault report.

Following the path of a related sexual assault lawsuit filed earlier, the case of Jane Doe 7 v. Kansas University has also been moved from Douglas County to federal court. “Doe” publicly identified herself earlier this month as Sarah McClure, and said she was a freshman on the KU rowing team when a football player sexually assaulted her at Jayhawker Towers in August 2015.

KU asked for the case to be moved because its allegations fall under the Constitution or laws of the United States, specifically Title IX, according to the notice of removal KU filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan. (Title IX is the federal law that prohibits gender-based discrimination in education. It’s the law that requires universities to investigate and take measures to prevent sexual harassment, including sexual violence, on their campuses.)

KU has yet to file its response to allegations outlined in the Jane Doe 7 lawsuit, but in Friday’s filing requested a trial by jury in the case.

McClure originally filed her case in April in Douglas County District Court, accusing KU of failing to properly investigate and adjudicate her sexual assault complaint and of allowing her rowing coach to retaliate against her following the complaint.

The case of Daisy Tackett v. KU was filed in March in county district court and moved in April to federal court, for the same reasons. Tackett said she too was a freshman on the rowing team when she was raped by the same football player in fall 2014. In her lawsuit she makes the same accusations against KU.

Both women reported their assaults to KU’s Office of Institutional Opportunity and Access in October 2015. Following that office’s investigation, the football player was expelled in spring 2016. Tackett withdrew from KU early in the spring semester. McClure finished the spring semester but does not plan to return, according to family.

A third separate but related lawsuit remains pending in Douglas County District Court. Tackett’s parents, James and Amanda Tackett, sued KU under the Kansas Consumer Protection Act, accusing KU of misleading the public by representing campus housing as safe. Daisy Tackett, McClure and McClure’s father Jim McClure have since joined that lawsuit. KU has moved to have it dismissed, saying the parties don’t have standing to sue, and the first hearing in the case is scheduled for August.

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• I’m the Journal-World’s KU and higher ed reporter. See all the newspaper’s KU coverage here. Reach me by email at sshepherd@ljworld.com, by phone at 832-7187, on Twitter @saramarieshep or via Facebook at Facebook.com/SaraShepherdNews.