University of Iowa sex assault claim leads to expulsion

IOWA CITY, Ia. – A University of Iowa student has been expelled from the university after a female student said he sexually assaulted her Jan. 15, according to a document obtained by the Iowa City Press-Citizen.

The expulsion is the first at the University of Iowa in at least a decade, perhaps longer, administrators said. The university said the student had demonstrated a pattern of “predatory behavior.”

On April 1, Dean of Students David Grady sent a letter to the victim stating that the other student had violated the university’s sexual misconduct policy. The Des Moines Register does not identify victims of sexual assault in most circumstances.

“The student charged with misconduct has been immediately and permanently separated from the University of Iowa without a possibility of reinstatement,” Grady wrote in the letter. “His record in the Office of the Dean of Students will indicate that he was expelled and a notation placed on his academic transcript.”

Tom Rocklin, the university’s vice president of student life, said suspensions have been the primary disciplinary tool used when a student violates a policy.

Linda Stewart Kroon, director of the University of Iowa’s Women’s Resource and Action Center, said Friday that the move to expel the student could be unprecedented.

“To my knowledge, this is the first time this has happened,” Stewart Kroon said.

A news release issued Friday said that the expulsion followed allegations that included an act of forcible fondling and a separate incident that involved forcible fondling and forcible sodomy.

The expelled student was implicated in two separate sexual assaults, the university said, one off campus in December and the sexual assault reported to have occurred Jan. 15.

“There was a pattern here of predatory behavior,” university spokesman Tom Moore said.

Rocklin, the student life vice president, said the expulsion can be directly tied to President Sally Mason’s announcement in February of an aggressive plan to combat sexual assaults.

“We have used indefinite suspensions, we’ve used termed suspensions, but the president’s plan, the Six Point Plan, calls for the use of expulsion in the most serious offenses,” Rocklin said.

Grady said that, in the past three years, he has suspended 21 students. Eleven of those suspensions were for sexual misconduct or domestic violence incidents.

The letter sent to the victim said that the student was expelled April 1, about five weeks after the conclusion of the university’s investigation.

Per the victim’s request, university police did not pursue criminal charges, Moore said.

Iowa City police could not be reached for comment Friday on any investigation of an off-campus assault in December.

An administrative hearing for the expelled student was scheduled, but it was canceled April 1 after the student waived his right to the meeting.

The letter also says that a no-contact order is in effect between the victim and the expelled student, and that the expelled student is prohibited from entering university property without Grady’s written permission.

“While it was not easy, you did the right thing by coming forward with the complaint,” Grady wrote to the victim. “Your courage and strength is to be commended.”