LSU officials announced Friday that they would provide former LSU student Samantha Brennan with an unredacted version of a police report based on a complaint she filed in 2016, after the Louisiana Legislative Women's Caucus called on the university to stop fighting Brennan's request.
Brennan in 2016 reported to police that former LSU star running back Derrius Guice had shared a partially nude photo of her without her permission. She testified about it this week at the State Capitol during an emotional, 10-hour-long hearing about LSU's failures on handling sexual misconduct complaints.
Brennan joined USA Today last November in a lawsuit against LSU when the university would not release the police report documenting the investigation into her complaint. After they filed the lawsuit, but before the case went to a hearing, LSU released the report with Guice's name redacted. Brennan and USA Today argued in court that the redaction represented yet another attempt by LSU to protect Guice, who has been accused of raping two other women at LSU as well.
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An attorney for Guice has denied wrongdoing from his time at LSU. Guice was arrested last year on domestic violence charges in Virginia, and cut from the Washington Football Team.
Nineteenth Judicial District Judge Janice Clark issued a ruling early this year that LSU was to release Brennan's unredacted report. LSU appealed the ruling; it was not immediately clear Friday whether the university's decision to release the report means LSU will drop the appeal.
Brennan confirmed Friday that she'd finally received the unredacted record.
"I never thought I'd be excited to see Derrius Guice's name, but wow, is it satisfying right now," she said.
The caucus had also called for LSU to release a Title IX investigation to Abby Owens, who alleged that Guice raped her in 2016 and who said that LSU was made aware of it in 2017.
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However, LSU said Friday that there is no Title IX record in Owens' case, which was among the many errors identified in LSU's recent Husch Blackwell review. Senior Associate Athletic Director Miriam Segar reported Owens' rape allegation verbally to the Title IX office in 2017, but no written record was ever created, according to Husch Blackwell.
"No one from Athletics or, more importantly, the Title IX Office reached out to (Owens) to gather additional information about this assault," the report states. "This was an error."
The Women's Caucus said in a statement Friday that its members were "deeply troubled" by LSU's failures in handling sexual assault complaints.
"The moral and systemic failures of the LSU administration and staff to their students and sexual assault survivors warrants our collective, persistent, and unapologetic response to the damning and devastating findings delineated in the Husch Blackwell Title IX Review of LSU," the caucus wrote.
LSU officials said in a statement Friday that they, too, share the goal of making LSU a safe and welcoming campus for all.
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"We acknowledge the concerns that have been expressed, and we apologize to the survivors for the pain and suffering they have endured. LSU will and must do better," says the statement from LSU. "There is no greater priority than the safety of our students."
