Lawsuit Accusing YU of Sexual Assault Cover-Up Dropped, Settlement Details Unknown

The lawsuit accusing Yeshiva University of deliberately covering up the rape of a former student by a member of YU’s basketball team was dropped Aug. 20, following more than two years of litigation. Details of the settlement between the former student and YU are currently unknown.

The alleged assault took place in January 2021 and a complaint was filed with YU’s Title IX office in February. According to the initial complaint filed at the start of the lawsuit, the student — identified in court documents as “Jane Doe” — was told by Dean Chaim Nissel that YU had found the alleged rapist to be “not responsible” for sexual assault that May. In August, the student wrote an anonymous article for The Commentator, condemning the school’s handling of the situation. The student filed a lawsuit against YU in June 2022.

The federal lawsuit brought 14 charges against YU, Seyfarth Shaw, the law firm hired by YU to investigate the student’s sexual assault allegation and several employees of both organizations. Charges against the defendants included deliberately violating Title IX regulations intended to protect students against sexual assault, engaging in retaliation against the student for speaking out and releasing fraudulent statistics about the sex crimes reported on YU campuses.

The lawsuit further alleged that YU had attempted to cover up the student’s allegation of sexual assault for the specific purpose of preventing damage to the reputation of the school and its basketball team, the YU Maccabees, which maintained a win streak of over 50 games during the time. According to the complaint, this was done to prevent harm to YU’s Rise Up fundraising campaign for $613 million.

Despite the alleged attempt by YU to protect the Macs’ reputation by covering up sexual assault, the player accused of rape did not play a single game for the Macs the year in question, despite being on the roster, sources familiar with the Macs composition at the time told The Commentator.

The initial complaint also accused the law firm Seyfarth Shaw of overlooking crucial evidence pointing towards the truth of the plaintiff’s claims, such as refusing to interview witnesses she identified to investigators and never requesting access to the hospital’s rape kit which included photographic evidence of injuries that corroborated her claim that the player had used force and violence against her. The complaint also noted that Seyfarth Shaw, hired as an independent investigator, had for years been employed by YU for defense in a sexual abuse lawsuit involving dozens of former students of YU’s high school for boys (YUHSB).

When the lawsuit was filed, a spokesman for YU told The Commentator that the university was “fully confident” that the student’s allegation of sexual assault was properly investigated. YU declined to tell The Commentator whether this was still the position of the university.

Several months after the lawsuit was initially filed, the student filed an amended complaint, which was kept sealed for privacy purposes and is not available to the public.

In November 2023, Senior Judge Kevin Castel, the federal judge assigned to the case, dismissed eight of the 14 charges, determining that the facts as presented by the student did not support them. These included the charges that YU had retaliated against the student and that YU had released fraudulent statistics about reported sexual crimes on campus. Six charges were left in place.

In her 2021 article for The Commentator, the student described her pain from YU’s handling of her complaint.

“I started to realize that there is indeed a rape culture at Yeshiva University, and it enables rapists to rape without fear of getting in trouble,” the student wrote for The Commentator. “YU is not an exception to the rule –– its founding pillars have become weak. Every student deserves to feel safe on campus, and right now, they do not. The moral structure is collapsing, and I experienced one of its fatal breachings. Students are not safe on campus, and the school cares too much about its image to restore its values or do anything about it.”

“Sometimes I feel as if telling the school was almost as painful and hard to go through as the rape itself.”

Following the allegations, in January 2022, YU announced plans to restructure the school’s Title IX office in order to improve resources for victims of sexual assault and harrassment. In March of that year, the school appointed Ann Todd as a new deputy Title IX coordinator. YU declined to share with The Commentator whether the lawsuit led to any changes in YU’s Title IX policy or policy respecting reporting claims of campus sexual assault to the public.

Of the individual defendants, the case against Emily Miller, a Seyfarth Shaw associate, was dropped at the end of 2022. The charges against the other individual defendants, Andrew Lauer, YU’s general counsel, Nissel, vice provost of student affairs and Title IX coordinator and Dov Kesselman (YC ‘93), a Seyfarth Shaw partner, were dropped in June.

While information about any potential settlement is not currently public, a case management plan signed by the judge in March 2024 mentioned that the plaintiff had “tendered a settlement demand” to the defendants. 

Kevin Mulhearn, attorney for the plaintiff in this case and most of the plaintiffs in the YUHSB case, declined to comment on the resolution of this case, saying he was not at liberty to do so. Danielle Lesser, attorney for YU, also declined to elaborate on the settlement, telling The Commentator that “[t]he matter has been resolved and the litigation has been discontinued.”

The Title IX lawsuit was not the only legal issue involving YU to be settled last month. On Aug. 19 a lawsuit between Dr. Edward Farkas, interim dean of YU’s planned dental school, and Touro University over Farkas’ alleged theft of trade secrets was also settled. Farkas had formerly served as vice dean of Touro’s dental school through December 2023.

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Photo Caption: NY County Courthouse with the Daniel Patrick Moynihan US Courthouse, where Judge Castel’s chambers are, in the background. 

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons / giggel