A federal judge on Thursday refused to revive a lawsuit central to the University of Colorado football recruiting scandal.
U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn said new evidence submitted by Lisa Simpson and another woman who say they were sexually assaulted at a 2001 party didn’t show the university was culpable.
“The university has never been deliberately indifferent to such allegations,” said Larry Pozner, a Denver lawyer representing CU. “The evidence that the plaintiffs brought to the case didn’t add to that. This case has now been dismissed twice, in essence.”
Baine Kerr, who represents the women, said he is putting together an appellate team and plans to ask the 10th U.S. Court of Appeals to reinstate the lawsuit.
“Lisa Simpson remains committed to and confident of having her day in court,” Kerr said.
Blackburn dismissed the case a year ago, saying plaintiffs did not meet the burden of proof necessary to take the case to trial.
Lawyers for the women submitted additional evidence to prove that football players had committed other assaults that university officials knew about.
While Blackburn said the evidence wasn’t enough to prove a Title IX case, he said events revealed by the lawsuit were shameful at best and criminal at worst.
“There is much about the incidents evidenced in the record of this case that cries out for justice,” he wrote. “A cry for justice, however, does not mean that Title IX should be expanded to provide justice simply because the cry for justice has not been answered otherwise.”
Simpson and another woman, who has asked not to be named, sued the university under Title IX, a federal law that allows women to sue if they believe a school’s policies have barred them from their right to an education.
The women contend that CU football players and recruits crashed a party at Simpson’s apartment and sexually assaulted them.
Staff writer Alicia Caldwell can be reached at 303-820-1930 or acaldwell@denverpost.com.
