The Associated Press has reported that a former unnamed Connecticut women’s hockey player was kicked off the team in 2011 after reporting that she was raped by a player on the UConn men’s team.
The plaintiff has joined a federal civil rights lawsuit that alleges the school mishandled allegations of sexual assaults on campus.
According to the report, the woman claims she was raped in August 2011 and said that after reporting the incident to school officials, she was advised to transfer and allegedly told by her coach that she was not “stable enough” and would “bring the team down.”
The woman’s attorney, Gloria Allred, claims that UConn officials “did not investigate her removal from the team, didn’t advise her she could stay in school and didn’t tell her she had the option to call police or pursue a complaint with the school that could lead to a hearing. They did not ask for the identity of her rapist,” the report states.
The school declined to comment to the AP on the new allegations, though university attorney Richard Orr said there has been “an internal review of the allegations by the four women that originally brought the suit on Nov. 1 and the school will respond ‘at the appropriate time and in the appropriate forum,'” read the report.
An email message from the AP seeking comment was left with former UConn women’s coach Heather Linstad, who resigned in March after 13 years with the Huskies.
Additionally, the women’s hockey player said that UConn eventually paid her medical bills and refunded her tuition after she met with school officials. The AP report also states that a school official wrote her a letter to provide to other colleges, saying that she had been the victim of an “incident” in 2011 and left the university in good standing.
