Colo. gov. to CU: clean up recruitment

DENVER, Jan. 30 (UPI) -- The governor of Colorado has warned the state's biggest university to deal with charges they use sex to recruit athletes -- or he will do it for them.

"Women are not recruiting tools," Gov. Bill Owens warned school officials Thursday in a letter, the Denver Post reported Friday.

This week's allegations came with the release of depositions taken in a federal lawsuit filed by former Colorado University student Lisa Simpson over her alleged rape at a 2001 party attended by football players and recruits.

Simpson accuses the university of violating Title IX, the federal law barring federally funded schools from having discriminatory policies.

In her deposition, Boulder District Attorney Mary Keenan, a potential witness for Simpson, said the university for years has refused to reform the way it recruits football players.

Keenan never charged anyone with Simpson's alleged sexual assault, because she did not think she could prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt, she said.

Keenan first put the university "on notice" in 1998, after another woman reported being raped during a recruiting weekend the year before, she said.