photo by: Ashley Golledge

This Journal-World file photo from 2019 shows Green Hall, 1535 W. 15th St., home to the University of Kansas School of Law.

A federal lawsuit filed against the University of Kansas by a former KU law student who said she had been raped by a fellow student has been dismissed for failure to state a claim.

The lawsuit, filed in October of 2020, followed a yearslong series of events in which the plaintiff reported to Lawrence police in September 2018 that a fellow student had raped her while she was too intoxicated to consent. As the case was being investigated, the student also reported the incident to KU’s Office of Institutional Opportunity and Access.

During the course of the investigation the student became a crime suspect herself as law enforcement came to question her account of what happened between the two students. In January 2019, she was charged in Douglas County District Court with filing a false report of rape — a case that then-Douglas County District Attorney Charles Branson dismissed 10 months later.

A year after that dismissal, in October 2020, the woman filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Lawrence, multiple Lawrence police officers and the University of Kansas.

She alleged in the lawsuit that she suffered emotional distress, embarrassment, lost educational opportunities, expenses for medical and psychological treatment and more as a result of the ordeal.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas dismissed the lawsuit against KU earlier this month, ruling that the plaintiff’s allegations that KU violated her Title IX rights, created a hostile environment and retaliated against her were all without merit.

In addition to KU, the plaintiff had sued the City of Lawrence and three officers of the Lawrence Police Department, who also had moved to dismiss the claims against them. Those motions were granted in part and denied in part. Specifically, the federal court dismissed the plaintiff’s claims of abuse of process, malicious prosecution and conspiracy to deprive her of her civil rights — but it has allowed claims of gender-based equal protection and various state law claims to proceed.

Douglas County’s current district attorney, Suzanne Valdez, who used to be employed by KU’s law school before resigning after a dispute with its administration, was named as a corroborating witness in the woman’s lawsuit against KU and the remaining defendants.