The University of Minnesota has reached a $500,000 settlement with a woman who alleges she was assaulted by a group of football players.
The woman, who will remain anonymous, alleges that she was gang raped by a group of Minnesota football players, four of whom were expelled from the university.
The university released the settlement agreement to the Pioneer Press in response to a public records request.
The settlement statement states that the woman “believes that the University’s Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action office, the Office for Community Standards, and the Student Sexual Misconduct Subcommittee, appropriately conducted the disciplinary process following her report of sexual misconduct, but she believes and has claimed that the University violated her rights relating to events occurring prior to Fall 2016 and as a result, has suffered physical injuries.”
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For its part, the university denies “that the events prior to Fall 2016 give rise to any legal responsibilities of the University to Claimant for the Incident.”
The players involved in the woman’s allegations allegedly coerced the woman in to having sex with a Gopher football player and a high school recruit after doing several shots of vodka. Several more football players arrived to watch and took turns having sex with the woman against her will.
Hennepin County prosecutors decided not to charge any of the men, relying solely on a 90-second video of the initial encounter that police said made it look “entirely consensual.”
An internal investigation into the conduct of 11 players cleared one and led to varying levels of discipline for 10 others. The team would later threaten to skip their appearance in the Holiday Bowl over the handling of the situation. Head coach Tray Claeys, who supported the players’ protest, was fired immediately after the Holiday Bowl.
Ten of the players, all of whom are African-American, sued the university in 2018 for race and gender discrimination, but a federal judge rejected all of their claims.
