Not all good news for University of Colorado

Before Colorado kicked a last second field goal to beat No. 3 ranked Oklahoma, the athletic department got kind of a shock from the 10th Court of Appeals. In a case styled Simpson v. University of Colorado, the Court held that a co-ed could continue her case against the University for violations of Title IX. The plaintiffs in Simpson were not athletes, but young ladies who volunteered to serve as ambassadors for recruits that came to visit the University with a view toward becoming athletes. The recruits were told by their male sponsors that the ambassadors (like the Simpson plaintiffs) were there to show them a "good time" and strongly implied that sex was part of the deal.

Colorado administrators either knew that the danger of sexual assault was very high in recruit/ambassador encounters, and/or failed to train the player-hosts so as to reduce the likelihood of a sexual assault. Indeed, the assaults here were allegedly the "natural, perhaps inevitable, consequence of an officially sanctioned, but unsupervised efforts" of the University, according to the Plaintiffs. The school tried to claim that the sexual assaults on the Simpson plaintiffs was aberrant and unexpected bad behavior, but the 10th Circuit placed the potential responsibility at the doorstep of the University administrators.

Important to the Court's ruling was the report of an assault by recruits that occurred in 1997. That assault was reported to the District Attorney who notified Colorado administrators that they needed more training in their program. The administrators allegedly did not too much in reply to the District Attorney's warning.

I've got to say that this is a pretty liberal view of the requirements for Title IX liability for student/student sexual assault, but it is also a pre-trial ruling, not a ruling after a jury trial. It will be interesting to see if Colorado pays to settle, tries the case, or continues to risk adverse publicity by appealing further.