Students Allege Women Drugged At Off-Campus Law School Parties

Disturbing allegations of assaults at a law school.

The last life lesson I learned from Bill Cosby is to take allegations of drugging women seriously. Hopefully, law school administrators have learned the same thing.

Sources report to Above the Law that there has been an “epidemic” of women being drugged in the Syracuse College of Law community. Sources say that four different women had something put in their drinks across three different off-campus parties. The guests were reportedly mostly 3Ls and other law students, though there were some non-law invitees. One of the alleged victims filed a report with campus police. Here’s a report from a Syracuse Law student:

The 3Ls who were victims of this crime only have a couple of identities in common, that is, they are all third year law students, they are all women, and they all hold leadership positions at SUCOL. They were all drugged at a 3L’s house party. I was one of those women. As such, what has now become an endemic issue, seems to be targeted against students who hold these traits as an intimidation tactic, or more specifically a hate crime. None of the survivors have reported sexual assault or attempted sexual assault. The act seems to be committed for the sole purpose of causing physical trauma as a terror tactic. Students affected have reported adverse effects such as complete bodily arrest and lack of mobility, blacking out and lack of memory about chunks of the night when they were drugged, vomiting, physical tremors and seizures, rapid drop in body temperature and loss of consciousness.

The police have no suspects, but the students reasonably believe that the alleged assailant is one of their classmates. Our sources believe that women in leadership positions are being targeted for these assaults.

We contacted Syracuse Law and Dean Hannah Arterian. She said that Assistant Dean for Student Life Tomás A. Gonzalez is the point person for this situation. Gonzalez provided us with this statement:

This is an active investigation so we are limited in what we can provide. What I can tell you is about two weeks ago we did received a report from a law student concerning possible drink tampering at a house party several miles off-campus during the end of fall semester. The College of Law actively encouraged the student to report this incident to the police and she did. The incident is currently under investigation. To date, this is the only student from which we have received a report.

We have arranged with the University’s Department of Public Safety for a student forum on February 3rd on the topic of Personal Safety off-campus. The original date of the forum was to be this Friday (1/30), but at the request of the reporting student and student leaders, the date was moved to Feb. 3rd so that the forum could be more accessible to all students. There will be notification of the forum to all students, as well as notice of all subsequent programs.

We take student safety very seriously and it is one of our paramount concerns. We always urge students to come to us with issues of safety both on and off campus.

Our sources wish the school could do more. Our tipster alleges that the local hospital told one victim that they don’t test for date rape drugs, “only cocaine.”

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You can see the difficulty of the situation here. I’m inclined to take Syracuse officials at their word, that they do take the alleged drugging of law school women seriously. How could they not? But taking it seriously means that this is a police matter, not one the school administrators are qualified or capable of handling. You can see how Gonzalez is literally distancing the school from these allegations (a house party “SEVERAL MILES OFF-CAMPUS”), but there is little the school can do about off-campus house parties.

But the students, especially the ones who feel they are under attack, have a reasonable expectation that their school will do everything it can to protect their safety. Syracuse has to keep the pressure on the police, has to keep the community updated and informed, and if the allegations are true and the assailant is a law student, it has to bring the hammer down to the full extent of the law. And how is the hospital that services a school campus not prepared for date-rape issues?

All you can hope for is that everybody involved on the school and law enforcement end takes the allegations “seriously.” This is a law enforcement issue, as well as a law school issue.

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