No charges filed against Stanford student arrested for rape

The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office will not file charges against a male Stanford University graduate student arrested for allegedly raping a 28-year-old woman on campus on Sept. 24, Bay City News Service reported Friday.

The 22-year-old graduate student was arrested in the early hours at Lyman Graduate Residences on Campus Drive after campus police were called to his residence, according to William Larson, public information officer for the Department of Public Safety. 

Prosecutors received the case on Wednesday, Oct. 5, and declined to press charges after a review of the evidence, district attorney’s officials told Bay City News.

The graduate student and woman, who is not a Stanford student, were in a “dating relationship” at the time of the incident, Larson said.

The graduate student was arrested and booked into the Santa Clara County Main Jail in San Jose. He posted his $100,000 bail and was released the next day, Larson said.

Just six days later, a female Stanford student reported to a campus security authority that she was raped by a male whom she didn’t know. The alleged incident took place in the man’s dorm room on the east side of campus.

Larson said that Monday that the Department of Public Safety “continues to actively investigate” this incident and “will not be providing additional details at this time so as to not compromise the investigation nor breach the privacy and confidentiality of the victim.”

Stanford spokeswoman Lisa Lapin declined to say last week whether the university had opened a Title IX investigation into either case, but said that “it is a standard practice for the university to invite a sexual assault victim to speak to the Title IX office immediately after an incident.”

Stanford announced Monday that an advisory committee of faculty and students, formed to monitor and make recommendations related to the university’s ongoing work to prevent sexual violence, is seeking input on these efforts from the campus community. The Advisory Committee on Sexual Assault Policies and Practices will be taking input through an online form on an ongoing basis, either by name or anonymously, the university said in a press release.

The committee is now being chaired by law professor Pamela Karlan. Karla replaces chair Stanford Law School Dean Elizabeth Magill, who led a provost’s task force that last year issued a set of recommendations around sexual violence, including to make expulsion the “expected” consequence for students found responsible of sexual assault. Magill remains a member of the committee.

The advisory committee has been tasked with monitoring education and support programs related to sexual assault, as well as the university’s new pilot process for adjudicating reports of sexual violence. The pilot process is “expected to continue well into 2018,” the press release reads. Its full, official adoption as university policy is contingent on approval from several faculty, student and administrative bodies, Stanford said.

“The advisory committee will monitor the process and gather information in order to make a recommendation about its ongoing adoption or refinement,” the university said.