Student: School retaliating for rape claim

• Tweet

CHAPEL HILL, N.C., Feb. 27 (UPI) -- A North Carolina college student who claimed a fellow student raped her says she regrets she ever brought the matter to a student tribunal for adjudication.

Landen Gambill of Mooresville, a sophomore-level student at the Chapel Hill campus of the University of North Carolina, weeks after filing a federal complaint against the university for its handling of sexual assault cases, said she was accused of intimidation and has been victimized all over again by the student-administered Honor Court for her complaint that her ex-boyfriend and fellow student repeatedly raped, sexually assaulted and ultimately stalked her last year, The (Raleigh) News & Observer reported Wednesday.

After securing a no-contact order against the ex-boyfriend, Gambill received a letter from the Honor Court saying she had been charged with "disruptive or intimidating behavior that willfully abuses, disparages, or otherwise interferes" with another's academic pursuits at the university. The ex-boyfriend made the counter-accusation. He had been found not guilty by the honor court, but only after he had, inexplicably, been suspended from the school before his Honor Court date.

The ex-boyfriend has not been charged criminally, as Gambill said the Dean of Students office dissuaded her from simultaneously going to the police and pursuing an honor trial.

Gambill said Honor Court members asked her questions that insinuated the assaults were her fault

Gambill now faces another trial, and a number of punishments, up to and including expulsion.

"I think they want me to shut up and to be quiet and not to talk about it any more.I think they're trying to scare me into silence. I mean, that's the only possible justification. They want to punish me for calling them out and saying, 'We deserve better than this,'" Gambill said, adding the university is aware of sexual abuse on campus and doesn't want to do anything about it.