St. John’s University men’s lacrosse team / 1990s
On March 1, 1990, an African American woman of Jamaican descent reported that she had been taken to an off-campus house by an acquaintance connected to St. John’s University’s rifle club, given alcohol, and sexually assaulted by several white male students. Three of the six men she identified were members of the St. John’s men’s lacrosse team. She said she was semi-conscious during the assault and was later taken to another house, where she alleged that further abuse occurred. The case quickly became a combustible mixture of race, collegiate athletics, gender politics, and questions about consent: the woman’s sexual history was scrutinized, critics questioned her memory and the delay in reporting, and some members of the university community blamed her. One student, Thomas Dean, reached an agreement with prosecutors and testified that the prosecution’s account of events was accurate; the charges included sodomy and related sexual-assault allegations. Despite the testimony and the intense public attention, the defendants were acquitted, while several students were expelled from St. John’s through university disciplinary proceedings. New York Mayor David Dinkins called the verdict shocking and dismaying, and Congressman Charles B. Rangel compared it to the acquittal of white defendants in the Old South and urged federal scrutiny of the alleged civil-rights implications. The controversy became an early, highly publicized precedent for the later Duke lacrosse case and was dramatized in a Law & Order episode, “Out of Control.” The criminal acquittal did not resolve the broader dispute over consent, racial bias, victim credibility, and the different standards applied by courts and universities.
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