IOWA CITY, Iowa — University of Iowa (UI) President Sally Mason believes that if the university had offered better education and support to victims of sexual abuse on its campus, an incident in 2007 in which two football players sexually assaulted a female freshman athlete could have been avoided. Cedric Everson and Abe Satterfield were both found guilty of misdemeanor assault.
Mason claims the university will increase its efforts to improve campus safety and change its policies on drinking and sexual assault, the Des Moines Register reports. Mason fired general counsel Marcus Mills and dean of students Phil Jones after the incident. Mason believed they did not properly respond to the student’s claims that she had been sexually assaulted. Mills and Jones are currently suing the university for wrongful termination.
One of the problems with the reporting system on campus was that it lacked a single administrator with expert knowledge on sexual assault, Mason told the news source. The university hired Monique DiCarlo as the director of the Women’s Resource and Action Center to assist victims of rape, domestic violence and stalking.
The university now also requires that undergraduate students take a two-part online course on alcohol-related incident prevention.
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