USC says there was "troubling delay" in acting on fraternity sexual assault reports
CBSN
The University of Southern California on Friday said there was a "troubling delay" in alerting the campus community about allegations of drugging and sexual assault at a fraternity.
USC President Carol Folt said that in late September its Relationship & Sexual Violence Prevention Services, a counseling resource, received between five and seven "confidential disclosures" of possible drugging and sexual assault at a fraternity. Campus-wide communications weren't sent until about a month later.
"We now know that there was a troubling delay in acting on this information, and specifically in evaluating it for notification to the community," she said in a letter to the USC community.
Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.