Six women, including a Louisiana State University professor, are suing LSU over what they allege is its deliberate indifference to reports that a foreign national who worked at LSU engaged in sexual harassment, battery and rape.
The six unnamed plaintiffs’ lawsuit, which names the LSU Board of Supervisors and several LSU officials as defendants, was filed Oct. 4 in the Middle District of Louisiana. The complaint refers to the plight of Edouard d’Espalungue d’Arros, a French national who was a graduate student and employee at the university’s Department of French Studies until Nov. 20 of last year.
D’Espalungue was arrested in Rapides Parish for sexual battery and forcible rape of a 21-year-old University of Louisiana at Lafayette student on Sept. 30, 2018, according to the complaint. He then posted bail and was removed from teaching a French class at LSU, the lawsuit states, but d’Espalungue was not barred by the university from employment or interacting with LSU students.
Subsequently, several complaints about unwelcome touching, fondling, sexual assault and rape were filed with the university by plaintiffs, but no action was taken, according to the complaint.
“LSU was deliberately indifferent to this information, launched no investigation and implemented no interim measures to protect students,” the lawsuit states.
The university only suspended d’Espalungue in November of last year after the Sept. 6, 2020, rape of one of the plaintiffs, according to the complaint. D’Espalungue left the country on Dec. 14 of last year after a court granted him permission to spend the Christmas holiday at his parents’ home in Paris, the lawsuit says. He never returned and remains a fugitive over the Rapides Parish rape charges.
State Sen. Beth Mizell (R-Franklinton), who authored a new law that addresses “power-based violence” at the university, said steps taken by the state legislature earlier this year should prevent similar situations from happening at LSU in the future.
“The legislation passed in the 2021 session should address concerns that were present in this 2018 situation,” Mizell told the Louisiana Record in an email. “We now require memorandums of understanding, signed, between law enforcement and the university. We do not allow transcripts for transfer of students to be released if a complaint has been filed on that student.”
In addition, the LSU’s Title IX Office will report on its actions annually to ensure better transparency and accountability, she said.
“This report will allow public scrutiny for actions that may have fallen short but will also make public whether the expected standards for safety of our students in our universities statewide have been met,” Mizell said. “I am hopeful, but we are all watching.”
LSU retained the law firm Husch Blackwell to conduct an independent review of its sexual misconduct policies after the publication of a USA Today story in November 2020. The law firm’s report detailed a pattern of mishandling sexual misconduct complaints.