Recent Posts
Culture February 10, 2017
Stanford University has fired one of its lawyers for speaking out about their problematic process for handling sexual assault cases.
Crystal Riggins was one of six lawyers the university had on retainer to help students involved in sexual assault complaints – as part of Title IX, the federal law meant to protect women on campus.
Ironically Riggins was let go after speaking out about the university’s problematic system of handling such cases.
A Stanford administrator notified Riggins she was being let go, claiming the comments she made in a December New York Times article suggested she had “a lack of faith in Stanford’s Title IX process.”
The comments Riggins made were for an article detailing how a Stanford football player avoided any punishment for rape, despite three out of five panelists concluding he was guilty.
See, last year Stanford put a new policy into place which seemingly favors the accused over the accuser, as it required a unanimous decision from a three-member board. So, in that case, the student would have only faced punishment had four out of five panel members determined that he had committed the assault. The man, who could have been expelled, is still at Stanford and remains on the football team.
Speaking of the uphill battle for survivors, Riggins said, “It is very difficult to get a 3-0 decision from a panel, and these young women are terrified and traumatized and just want it to be done.” And that dissent was enough to get her axed.
Following her dismissal Riggins is worried for the wellbeing of students filing complaints, as she was the only one who specialized in helping the accusers.
“I am concerned that the current list has limited options for complaining students compared to responding students,” she wrote in a memo to the university, also “strongly advising” that they hire more lawyers with such expertise.
