Alleged rape victim: UNC's Title IX office failed her
CHAPEL HILL (WTVD) -- Soon after Delaney Robinson first reported to campus police in February that a fellow student raped her on UNC's campus, she turned to the university's Title IX office for help. The university has touted a new policy for better handling sexual assaults, but Robinson claims it mishandled hers.
The 19-year-old sophomore from Apex sat stoically as her attorney held up a picture of her bruised neck in front of a room full of reporters at a news conference Tuesday.
That photo was taken seven months ago, the night Robinson alleges UNC football player Allen Artis raped her at an on-campus apartment after a night of drinking.
Within hours of the news conference, Artis, a junior linebacker, was suspended from the football team. The following day he turned himself in on the misdemeanor warrants Robinson swore out against him for sexual battery and assault on a female.
Robinson said she felt she had no choice but to take it upon herself and settle for misdemeanor charges after campus police and UNC's Title IX office failed to properly investigate and resolve her case.
WATCH: Delaney Robinson's news conference
"I did not realize that rather than receiving support and concern from the university, I would only be further victimized by the people who should be working to keep us safe," she said.
After turning to the Title IX office in March, she said investigators closed the case in June without rendering a decision. She said the office then failed to follow its own revised Title IX policy, put in place in 2014 to better protect victims of sexual assault.
Robinson's attorney, Denise Branch, cited a July 11 meeting among a UNC attorney, campus police, two vice chancellors and the Title IX coordinator as an example of policy violations.
"They took my client's victim-impact statement and passed it around to everyone at that university meeting despite the fact that no decision in that case has been issued," Branch said.
Branch said it is Title IX policy to only consider a victim-impact statement once a decision has been reached and only then to decide on punishment for the assailant.
Branch said after that meeting, the Title IX office informed Robinson it was going to hold off on rendering a decision until after results of her toxicology report showing her blood-alcohol content were returned from the State Crime Lab.
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That consideration of Robinson's BAC also violates Title IX policy, Branch said.
The Title IX website states sexual contact requires a person's consent, so whether Robinson was drunk would be irrelevant.
"So the university failed by either being uninformed or completely disregarding the new Title IX guidelines that they so publicly pronounced having been put in place," Branch said.
ABC11 tried contacting the Title IX coordinator Katie Nolan, but the office directed us back to the university's initial statement, which reads in part, "These matters are complex." It goes on to say, "While the university always tries to complete an investigation as quickly as possible, our priority is to ensure that the factual investigations are complete and conducted in a fair and thorough manner."
Jim Woodall, Orange County District Attorney, said even though misdemeanor charges have already been filed in the case, the criminal investigation is still ongoing.
Typically, ABC11 does not name victims of sexual assault, however, Robinson has come out publicly.
