Suit targets UGA's policy

Attorney says sexual harassment was not investigated

The University of Georgia failed to recognize sexual harassment had occurred and failed to take remedial action on three student athletes accused of rape last year, according to a $25 million federal lawsuit filed last week.

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Filed in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, the suit names UGA President Michael Adams, Athletic Director Vince Dooley and former men's basketball coach Jim Harrick as individual defendants. It claims they were aware ex-basketball player Tony Cole, one of the accused athletes, had a history of sexual assault before he was admitted to the university in August 2001.

Steve Shewmaker, UGA's executive director of legal affairs, refused to comment on the lawsuit and said the case will be handled by the state attorney general's office, which represents the university.

Russ Willard, a spokesman for the attorney general, said the office will file its response to the suit within 30 days.

Mr. Adams and Mr. Harrick have said they were unaware of prior allegations against Mr. Cole until after he was enrolled at UGA.

The suit says the assaults in Mr. Cole's McWhorter Hall dorm room and the university's lack of response to the assaults caused the student to withdraw from the university.

"Nothing was done about whether or not these boys assaulted her," said George McGriff, of Atlanta, the student's attorney. "The university had an obligation and a duty to investigate."

In August 2002, a Clarke County Superior Court jury found football player Brandon Williams innocent of rape. Charges against Mr. Cole and another basketball player, Steven Thomas, were subsequently dropped.

"We don't believe the university had a right to sit and do nothing," Mr. McGriff said. "They had enough time to take action."

Mr. McGriff claims the university, by failing to take action against the student-athletes, did not follow its sexual harassment policy, which says: "Any student, faculty member or employee who knows of, receives information about or receives a complaint of sexual harassment should report the information ..."

University officials disregarded that policy, the suit says. "These are athletes, and there's a culture that athletes are treated above the rest of the student body," Mr. McGriff said. "And that's the issue we seek to attack."

--From the Sunday, August 31, 2003 printed edition of the Augusta Chronicle