A federal magistrate judge ruled today that the University of Colorado is required to give a woman suing the school two university police reports in which student athletic trainers reported being sexually assaulted.
Lawyers for CU said the judge’s order resolves conflicting messages they had gotten from different authorities looking into potential sexual misconduct in the school’s football program.
The ruling came in the now-dismissed Title IX lawsuit by former CU student Lisa Simpson, who accused the university of fostering a sexually hostile environment that led to her assault.
Larry Pozner, a lawyer representing CU, said university officials believed the police reports were under the Colorado attorney general’s control as that office investigated allegations of sexual improprieties at the school and its football program.
Schaffer said his reading of the law was that possession of the documents by the university’s office of sexual harassment was enough to make them subject to federal discovery rules.
While Schaffer ordered the documents released under protective seal, he gave the attorney general’s office five days to voice objections to the order.
