A former student at St. Olaf College in Northfield is fighting both criminal charges and his expulsion from school for alleged sexual contact with an intoxicated classmate.
Dilip Rao, 19, of Barrington, Ill., brought a woman he didn’t know back to his dorm room in November 2017 after drinking and playing “Truth or Dare” with the woman and three others.
Rao said in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court that they kissed and groped each other on his bed but stopped once she fell asleep.
He got up to go to the bathroom and woke the woman, who seemed confused about why she was naked, he said. When he returned from the bathroom, she dressed and said she never wanted to see him again.
While walking home, she texted a friend that something “bad happened.”
Three days later, the woman told police she had told Rao repeatedly that she was tired and didn’t want him to touch her.
Rice County prosecutors in January charged Rao with two counts each of third- and fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct. The charges relate to a victim who was forced or coerced or who was mentally incapacitated or physically helpless.
That same month, St. Olaf expelled Rao after conducting its own investigation.
The school concluded that the woman had consented to some kissing and touching but not to getting naked with Rao.
St. Olaf’s policy on sexual misconduct requires students to give each other affirmative consent to sexual contact through “words or overt actions.”
The school investigation found the woman gave only an “inaudible response, which (Rao) could not understand,” before he removed her pants. Rao claims she lifted her hips slightly to allow him to remove her jeans.
Rao’s lawsuit accuses St. Olaf of siding with the accuser for reasons unrelated to the facts of his case. It says the school has been stung by bad publicity when another alleged rapist went unpunished and was “overcompensating now” by refusing Rao due process.
Further, it claims St. Olaf treated Rao unfairly because of the Obama administration’s guidance for how schools should investigate sexual assault.
Rao cites a September 2017 letter from the Trump administration, which called the Obama administration’s Title IX guidelines unfair and encouraged colleges to do more to protect the rights of accused students.
St. Olaf this week asked a judge to dismiss the lawsuit.
“He acknowledges that … he attempted to fondle her and put her hand on his penis even though he never obtained clear verbal consent. He acknowledges that although (the woman) fell asleep that did not stop him from engaging in further sexual contact with her,” the school said.
The school’s memo also claims Rao told police in an interview that he performed multiple sex acts on the woman while she was drunk and asleep and that he felt he’d taken advantage of her.