Christian College Accused of Banning Student for Having Premarital Sex After She Reported Rape
I do believe that the Bible forbids both rape and pre-marital sex, but rape is obviously not the same thing as “pre-marital sex” in the ‘normal’ sense.
Christian colleges and complementarians need to stop conflating the two – what such Christians do when they conflate both is to victim-blame rape victims, which is disgusting.
(Link): She told her Christian college she was raped. Then she was banned from campus.
A new federal complaint says Visible Music College gave a student a choice: admit to breaking the school’s ban on premarital sex or be expelled.
April 29, 2022
By Tyler Kingkade
When Mara Louk told an administrator at Visible Music College, where she was a senior, that a male classmate had choked and raped her last November, she expected that school officials would help her file a police report and arrange a safety plan.
Instead, she said in a federal complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Education on Wednesday, administrators at Visible, a Christian college in Memphis, Tennessee, accused her of breaking school rules against premarital sex with a different student, an ex-boyfriend.
She denied having sex with him but said the school threatened to expel her unless she signed a confession and finished the school year remotely.
Visible Music College administrators also told her they would not remove the accused student from her classes because police didn’t arrest him, nor would they conduct a Title IX investigation, because the alleged assault happened off campus. And administrators attempted to bar Louk from telling anyone else at the school that she had been raped, she said.
… “Visible has retaliated against Mara in numerous ways,” Louk’s complaint says. “Instead of investigating the rape and providing support to Mara, Visible punished Mara for coming forward.”
Cari Simon, Louk’s attorney, added, “Any victim would be discouraged from coming forward after that.”
…Louk’s complaint comes as the Education Department prepares to unveil a new set of proposed Title IX regulations next month. The regulations are expected to significantly alter many of the Trump-era Title IX policies that were opposed by victims’ rights advocates, civil rights groups, university administrators and trade groups representing K-12 schools.
Victims’ advocates particularly want the Biden administration to overturn a provision that instructs colleges to dismiss Title IX complaints of alleged sexual misconduct that occur off campus.
Advocates note that this excludes assaults in students’ apartments and fails to address the impact on victims who share classes and other activities with their assailant.
…On Nov. 2, 2021, a male classmate, who is not named in the complaint, came over to her apartment to play board games. It was the first time they’d spent time alone together, and that night he sexually assaulted her, the complaint states.
Louk told an administrator of the alleged assault the next day. She said she shared classes with the student, and she wanted to ensure he wouldn’t harass her on campus.
… Louk filed a sexual assault report with Memphis police on Nov. 4, law enforcement records show. The following week, an officer called Louk to tell her that they did not have enough evidence to make an arrest, she said. The Memphis Police Department did not respond to a request for comment.
… On Nov. 15, a Visible Music College administrator told Louk and her parents that because police declined to charge the accused student, “there’s really nothing we can do at this point, so he will be attending classes like normal,” according to an audio recording of the meeting shared by Simon. Another administrator said if Louk disagreed, she should “take it up with the Memphis Police Department.”
The meeting’s focus then shifted to Louk’s relationship with her ex-boyfriend. According to the complaint, the accused student had told the college that Louk had sex with her ex-boyfriend that semester, and the ex-boyfriend had confirmed it. Louk said it was untrue, but administrators told her she would be disciplined for breaking school rules.
“It felt like a movie,” Louk said. “It didn’t seem real; it didn’t feel real. I kept thinking this is just a crazy, horrible nightmare, and hopefully one day I’ll wake up from it.”
… The college wanted Louk to sign what it called a “pastoral care contract,” confessing to breaking rules on premarital sex. According to a copy of the contract reviewed by NBC News, Louk would be required to finish her degree online, barred from campus and prohibited from talking to other students about her alleged assault.
On Nov. 24, the college issued a short statement to Louk stating that it would not do its own investigation of the alleged rape because the school did not have jurisdiction over an incident that took place off campus, citing Title IX regulations, according to the complaint. (The college has a dorm, but Louk lived in an apartment.) Louk was outraged, particularly because the school planned to punish her for allegedly having premarital sex off campus.
“They weren’t going to help me basically because it was off campus,” Louk said, “but with a separate situation that was also off campus, they were going to handle that and punish me for it.”
(Link): Mara Louk says Visible Music College punished her after rape claim
April 30, 2022
By Isabel Vincent
A woman claims her Christian college not only failed to protect her after she reported being choked and raped by a classmate last year — they punished her for coming forward, according to reports.
Mara Louk, 22, filed a federal complaint with the US Department of Education against Visible Music College in Memphis Wednesday.
The former student claims administrators wouldn’t remove her attacker from her classes, because he had not been arrested, court papers say.
They also accused Louk of breaking school rules forbidding premarital sex, with a different student — her ex-boyfriend, the suit claims. Although she denied the accusation, the school allegedly threatened to expel her unless she signed a confession and finished her school year remotely, according to an NBC News report.
“I just felt like, why did I even speak up?” Louk told the network. “That’s truly how I felt for a long time because everything seemed to keep getting worse.”
Louk wants the Department of Education to investigate Visible, to determine if the school violated a federal campus safety law requiring administrators to tell students of their options for help when they report sexual offenses.
(Link): Christian College Accused of Banning Student for Having Premarital Sex After She Reported Rape
Excerpts:
by Leonardo Blair
May 2, 2022
Mara Louk, a former student of Visible Music College, alleges that the small conservative Christian school in Tennessee banned her from campus for having premarital sex after she reported being choked and raped by another student last November, a complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Education on Wednesday reveals.
“I just felt like, why did I even speak up?” the 22-year-old aspiring singer-songwriter told NBC News. “That’s truly how I felt for a long time because everything seemed to keep getting worse.”
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