UI grad student settles alleged botched sexual harassment claim

Hunter
11/05/19

A University of Iowa graduate student who says she was intimidated and sexually harassed during a protest over current president Bruce Harreld’s hiring has agreed to a settlement.

37-year-old Ruth Bryant signed the $21,250 deal last month; the State’s Appeal Board approved it Monday, according to the Cedar Rapids Gazette.

In Bryant’s suit, filed in October 2017, she alleges in 2015, then-Associate Director of Campus Security William Searls approached her at the protest during a regents meeting. She stated he verbally harassed and intimidated her, and sexually harassed her. She reported the incident to the university and filed a formal complaint, but the Chief Diversity Office found the harassment didn’t occur. Bryant appealed, with the settlement coming out of that action.

Another suit, filed at the same time as Bryant’s by 31-year-old graduate student Samantha Lange, alleges that the University failed to reasonably respond to her allegations that she was sexually assaulted several times by another graduate student in 2012 and 2013. She says the UI retaliated against her and failed to address her concerns.

Lange’s suit has not been settled and is set for a January trial.