LSU has reached a settlement with a group of 10 former students who sued the university in 2021 amid allegations of sexual misconduct and domestic violence by LSU football players that garnered national attention and thrust the university's leadership into turmoil.
Settlement terms were not immediately disclosed in the court record, which said the parties "settled all of their claims and have agreed to amicably resolve this dispute." The case was dismissed without costs and without prejudice. Court records said it would be reopened if the settlement is not completed within a "reasonable time."
The plaintiffs in the case included Abby Owens, Samantha Brennan, Calise Richardson and Ashlyn Robertson, each of whom alleged sexual misconduct by former LSU football star Derrius Guice. Jade Lewis, another plaintiff in the case and a star LSU tennis player, was in an abusive relationship for years with former LSU football player Drake Davis, and said LSU failed to properly respond to reports that she was being beaten.
Other plaintiffs included Elisabeth Andries, Corinn Hovis, Sarah Beth Kitch and Kennan Johnson, each of whom said they experienced sexual misconduct or sex-based discrimination at LSU. Each said LSU officials failed to properly investigate their cases, despite federal Title IX laws requiring institutions to address sexual misconduct and domestic violence on campus.
Many of their allegations first emerged in 2020, prompting LSU to hire the law firm Husch Blackwell to assess the university's handling of sexual misconduct complaints. The firm's report said LSU often flouted federal requirements for addressing such cases, and that LSU had never fully staffed or funded its Title IX office. LSU hired more Title IX investigators and gave the office more money in response.
Husch Blackwell also found that LSU's athletic department had routinely kept reports of sexual misconduct in-house, rather than sharing them with the Title IX office or police.
"This scheme stymied LSU’s overall Title IX reporting system, successfully insulated coaches and players within LSU’s athletic programs from legitimate sexual assault claims and allowed the programs to continue operating unhindered to reach levels of success the program wouldn’t have reached otherwise," the plaintiffs argued.
LSU officials denied those allegations in court filings. They also said many of the plaintiffs' complaints were not filed timely, and that LSU officials could not be held responsible for students' off-campus behavior.
"Plaintiffs have not alleged that any LSU employee who responded to Plaintiffs’ alleged sexual or physical batteries 'desired to inflict severe emotional distress,'" LSU attorneys said in court documents. "Instead, Plaintiffs’ Complaint fails to distinguish 'severe emotional distress' caused by the underlying perpetrators of physical or sexual battery (for which the Board is not liable), from subsequent 'distress' caused by LSU employees’ responses."
Court records show attorneys for LSU and the plaintiffs have had several settlement conferences over the past few months. Plaintiffs' attorneys declined to comment Monday on the settlement, as did an LSU spokesperson.
The former students initially targeted a swath of defendants. They named more than a dozen LSU officials in the suit, including former LSU President F. King Alexander and former LSU Athletic Director Joe Alleva. Alexander and Alleva have since been dismissed; the only remaining defendant by the time the case settled was the LSU Board of Supervisors.
Several plaintiffs accuse Derrius Guice of assault
At least four women accused Guice of rape or sexual misconduct in 2016, and more accusations surfaced in later years.
The first was Ashlyn Robertson, who said in the lawsuit that she hosted a party in 2016 that Guice attended without an invitation. He raped her when she was passed out on her bed, according to the suit. Her boyfriend at the time was an LSU football recruit, who said he reported it to then-LSU football coach Ed Orgeron, according to the lawsuit.
"Orgeron responded by telling Robertson’s boyfriend to not be upset because 'everybody’s girlfriend sleeps with other people,'" the lawsuit said.
Orgeron, who denied ever saying such a thing, was dismissed as a defendant.
Owens, a former LSU tennis player, also said Guice raped her in 2016 after buying her tequila shots at a bar and bringing her home, according to the lawsuit. She struggled with drugs and alcohol afterward, and eventually opened up about what happened when she went to rehab. The lawsuit said her father told tennis coach Julia Sell about the rape in 2017, but Sell did not believe it.
Brennan’s encounter happened a few months after Owens'. She said in court filings that she met Guice at a bar and woke up the next morning undressed, with a fuzzy recollection of what had happened. A few weeks later, she said she learned a partially nude photo of her was being passed around among LSU football players. She filed a report with campus police but declined to pursue charges. Years later, she had to sue LSU for access to her own police report.
Richardson said in the lawsuit that she was friends with Guice before he attempted to rape her in 2016. She said her supervisor at in the athletic department blamed her in the aftermath, according to legal filings.
Both Brennan and Richardson were student workers in the athletic department.
LSU scrubbed Guice from the school's record books amid the revelations, which include allegations from other women who are not plaintiffs in the lawsuit. His attorneys have denied wrongdoing from his time at LSU. Guice was on NFL rosters for two seasons and was cut after he was arrested on domestic violence charges in another case, which have since been dropped.
Drake Davis also a focus of lawsuit
Lewis, another former LSU tennis player, had one of the most high-profile cases at LSU.
She was in an abusive relationship in 2017 and 2018 with former LSU football player Drake Davis. She, her father and her teammates all made attempts to report her abuse to LSU staffers, but they did little to prevent the violence, according to the lawsuit.
In one instance, Davis texted Executive Deputy Athletic Director Verge Ausberry in 2018 admitting he’d hit Lewis in the stomach, according to police and court records. Ausberry did not report that disclosure to police, to the Title IX office or to anyone else. He said he called Davis in response, who retracted his confession.
LSU suspended Ausberry for a month after the revelation. He was initially named as a defendant in the lawsuit and later dismissed.
Davis was eventually arrested multiple times for partner violence against Lewis and another woman. He pleaded guilty to battery of a dating partner and violating a protective order.
LSU sanctioned over cellphone data
Three of the plaintiffs in the case are former LSU tennis players: Lewis, Johnson and Owens. Johnson said the LSU tennis coaches often berated her about her weight and her sexual preference. Johnson is gay.
Former LSU tennis coaches Michael and Julia Sell originally were named as defendants in the case but were dismissed.
However, the Sells' phones became a point of contention throughout the lawsuit, leading U.S. Magistrate Judge Scott Johnson to sanction LSU last September. All of the data on the Sells' LSU-issued phones was wiped before the plaintiffs had the chance to review it. The parties had agreed to a court order to preserve electronically stored information.
Johnson ordered LSU to pay reasonable expenses, including attorneys' fees and costs, related to the cellphone lapses. Plaintiffs' lawyers estimated in court records that those fees would be around $30,000.
Outcome differs from another sexual misconduct LSU suit
The settlement comes after another LSU sexual misconduct-related lawsuit recently went to trial. In that case, former LSU Athletics administrator Sharon Lewis alleged that other LSU officials retaliated against her for reporting sexual misconduct.
A jury dismissed all of her claims; she had asked for more than $6.3 million in compensatory damages and another $300,000 for emotional damages.
The jury found that Lewis was not subjected to a hostile work environment or harassment based on her gender. Lewis was also initially named as a defendant in the students' lawsuit, but was dismissed.
Lewis has appealed the verdict in her case and moved for a new trial. Those motions are pending.