A local university has come under federal investigation after a trans-identified student filed a complaint alleging the school created a hostile environment, among other things, in the wake of her on-campus sexual assault.
Harmony Rodriguez has filed a complaint with the United States Department of Education Office for Civil Rights against Temple University, alleging that Temple permitted a hostile environment to exist by failing to address multiple incidents of sexual harassment, including harassment based on her gender-nonconformance. She also contends Temple retaliated against her by threatening to remove her from a university student group because of her reports of sexual assault and sexual harassment.
The OCR confirmed in a Nov. 19 letter to Rodriguez that they would investigate her allegations.
Rodriguez also alleged that Temple failed to promptly and equitably respond to her report of sexual assault. OCR is already investigating the same allegation against Temple under a different case that includes the time period during which Rodriguez asserts she reported her assault. Therefore, Rodriguez’s case with the OCR will not include this allegation.
OCR has jurisdiction over this matter under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, as well as retaliation, by a recipient of the department’s federal financial assistance.
Temple spokesperson Brandon Lausch said, “Temple University fully cooperates in any OCR investigation.”
According to the complaint, on Aug. 24, 2013, during her first semester at Temple, Rodriguez went to Maxi’s Pizza, Subs & Bar to celebrate becoming a Temple student. After a few drinks, she says a student approached her, they chatted and he invited her back to his room. Rodriguez then bought herself another drink, and then the male bought her a drink. She admits she was drunk at this point, and that the male again asked her to come to his room.
Rodriguez says she told him she was transgender and he acted surprised, but said it didn’t matter. She then suggested he come back to her room at Temple Towers, where they managed to sign the male in as a guest without the officer noticing that Rodriguez was drunk.
When they got inside Rodriguez’s apartment, they went into her living room where, Rodriguez alleges, the male took off his shirt and jeans and forced her to perform oral sex on him, and later forced her to engage in anal intercourse. After he finished, Rodriguez says she remembered he said something about AIDS, then she blacked out. When she woke up, she says, the male was masturbating on the floor and proceeded to leave semen on her shirt.
Rodriguez escorted her assailant downstairs to sign him out per Temple policy, but she says the security officer noticed she was drunk because she was unable to say her last name. The officer, who according to Rodriguez works for a private security firm, was speaking with the male when Rodriguez bumped into a resident assistant, and she fell back and was unable to get up, prompting the RA to alert other RAs and Temple University Police.
“When the officer arrived, the security, RAs and the cops let my assailant leave and he ran out of the building,” Rodriguez said. “Nobody asked about [him] at all that night.”
She was then taken to Hahnemann University Hospital for alcohol-intoxication treatment. According to Rodriguez, a rape kit was not performed and no one asked if she wanted one.
The next day, Rodriguez began to remember more from the night of her assault, including that the male mentioned AIDS. At that point, she asked her own doctor at Mazzoni Center for help, out of fear she had contracted the virus. Rodriguez said she was prescribed Truvada post-exposure prophylaxis as a precaution.
On Sept. 3, Rodriguez was cited with a violation of the student conduct code for underage consumption of alcohol by Kerby Vincent, the coordinator for student conduct and coordinator of residential life, to whom she reported the rape the next day. That was the same day she also attended her student conduct hearing, over which he presided. Rodriguez says Vincent told her, “RAs aren’t trained to handle [rape allegations].”
A Temple University police officer was sent to Rodriguez’s dorm Sept. 6 when, after she retold the account, she says, she “shut down” and did not press charges that day. Rodriguez met with Shondrika Merritt, the assistant director of residential life for student behavior, Sept. 11 to tell her what had transpired. From there, Rodriguez says details from the rape report she gave them were passed to Nu’Rodney Prad, assistant director of residential life, who, on Sept. 12, approved the disciplinary action, which included a $250 fine, an online and in-person alcohol class and probation, determined in her conduct hearing and the rape report, according to Rodriguez.
Rodriguez contends that Temple should have tried to identify the assailant instead of punish her for an alcohol violation.
Later that month, The Temple News published an article titled, “After drinking crackdown, CSS links alcohol with sex crimes,” in which Rodriguez’s incident was mentioned and, according to her, created an atmosphere of bias. “I felt like school officials were blaming alcohol consumption by victims as the reason for the rapes. I had a mental breakdown.”
“Kerby Vincent told The Temple News the explicit details of my rape, beyond what is legally required of her, without my knowledge or permission,” Rodriguez said in her complaint. “The op-ed pieces that were published over the next few weeks contained more details than I think would be possible if they had not gotten them from administrators. It was excruciating to have people focus on drinking as a cause of rape rather than rapists.”
Rodriguez said she felt suicidal after reading the initial article, and after telling an RA this, voluntarily admitted herself to Temple University Episcopal Hospital’s Crisis Response Center. The next day, she says, she was transferred to Friends Hospital in Northeast Philadelphia. Rodriguez said her medical records from the Friends visit indicate recent sexual trauma.
This story will be continued next week.