KU files second motion to dismiss lawsuit by former rower who says she was raped

The University of Kansas, in a motion filed Friday, is calling for a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit in which a former KU rower says that she was raped in campus housing by a former football player and that the university failed to protect her.

Friday’s court document is the second motion to dismiss that KU has filed in this case.

KU said in its motion Friday that once Daisy Tackett, the former rower, reported to the university she was raped, it investigated the matter, provided an escort on campus and issued a no-contact order to the man accused.

Tackett, in a lawsuit filed March 21, said she was sexually assaulted at Jayhawker Towers in October 2014 by a KU football player, referred to in court documents as John Doe G. The Star learned that Jordan Goldenberg Jr., a former KU long snapper, is John Doe G.

The lawsuit says that KU was “deliberately indifferent to the sexual harassment of a student by another student.” It also claims that after reporting she was attacked, the football player stalked her and KU rowing team coaching staffers retaliated against her.

Tackett’s lawsuit is one of three filed against the university involving Goldenberg. Sarah McClure, another former rower, says in her suit against KU that she too was sexually assaulted by Goldenberg in Jayhawker Towers.

A third lawsuit is a class action against KU filed by Tackett’s parents, James and Amanda Tackett, and later joined by McClure and her father, Jim. That lawsuit accuses KU of falsely advertising that student housing on the Lawrence campus is safe.

Attorneys for Goldenberg say the former football player “strongly denies” that he sexually assaulted either Daisy Tackett or Sarah McClure.

Goldenberg has never been charged with a crime. Tackett never reported to police that she was raped, only to KU officials.

The motion to dismiss filed by the university Friday “denies the allegations” of Tackett’s complaint.

Tackett’s attorney, Dan Curry, told The Star that “it seems that KU is trying really hard to keep us from finding out what really happened. The arguments raised here are the arguments they’ve raised before, and furthermore we don’t think they have any merit.”

KU’s motion says Tackett “seeks damages from KU under Title IX primarily because she was raped in a KU student housing facility. That incident is tragic, but it is not one for which Title IX makes the University liable.”

A KU investigation into Tackett’s report she was raped concluded that Goldenberg had “engaged in non-consensual sex” with Tackett and recommended that Goldenberg be permanently expelled.

Those conclusions were made by KU’s office of Institutional Opportunity and Access, which investigates reports of Title IX violations. Title IX is the federal law protecting against gender discrimination, including sexual harassment and sexual violence.

KU’s motion to dismiss Tackett’s lawsuit also says the university “may be liable for peer-on-peer harassment only where it has actual knowledge of ongoing sexual harassment and remains deliberately indifferent to it.”

Tackett was a freshman at KU when she says Goldenberg raped her. After returning to campus the following fall for her sophomore year, she reported the assault to members of the KU athletic department and the IOA office, according to her lawsuit.

She left KU in January 2016 and returned home to Florida.

The university in Friday’s motion said Goldenberg “agreed to be expelled.”

A letter to Tackett — signed by KU vice provost for student affairs Tammara Durham — outlined the finding of the IOA investigation into the former rower’s report to KU that she was raped and IOA’s recommendation that Goldenberg be permanently expelled.

According to the letter, Goldenberg was “effectively permanently expelled from the university and banned from campus for 10 years” and was “not to have contact” with Tackett “by electronic means, or other methods of communication.”

But Friday’s court document says Goldenberg withdrew from KU effective March 17, 2016. And his attorneys have maintained that Goldenberg was not expelled but instead, “withdrew for non-academic misconduct in lieu of expulsion.”

This story was originally published September 3, 2016 at 6:24 PM with the headline "KU files second motion to dismiss lawsuit by former rower who says she was raped."