Victorian universities facing legal action after spike in sexual assaults

Victorian universities are facing multiple legal cases as students returning to campus has lead to a spike in sexual assaults and harassment.

Victorian universities are facing multiple legal actions with students returning to campus leading to a spike in sexual assaults, inappropriate relationships and harassment.

Lawyer Paul O’Halloran, a partner at Colin Biggers and Paisley, has advised on a case involving an alleged assault between two drunk students at a residential college and said more such cases would be expected.

“There is a growing concern with more adult students in colleges bringing these kinds of complaints, and it’s fair to think some will end up in further action,” he said.

Another lawyer confirmed a second sexual assault case involving a student and staff member was about to be filed in court.

Student support services report universities across the state can’t keep up with more than 100 sexual complaints that could lead to even more legal cases.

It comes as a substantial payout awarded for a university college student raped by a fellow student while drunk on a pub crawl is sending shockwaves through the sector.

A former student at ANU’s John XXIII College last week was awarded $267,000 after the college was found to have breached its duty of care to the student.

John XXIII College was found to have breached its duty of care. Picture: Keegan Carroll

The student was so intoxicated that she didn’t remember the rape, but learned about it after the perpetrator who was joking about his “achievement” to others.

The college was found liable for her mental distress and loss of earnings after its head told the student that: “I’m not really sure that anything did actually happen”. He also told her: “Another concern is how you managed to get that drunk”.

The Supreme Court and Court of Appeal judgments highlight the alcoholic culture of the college, with vomit, garbage, urine and broken glass in hallways and ambulances called due to alcohol-related falls.

The rape survivor’s lawyer Leanne McDonald from Shine Lawyers said colleges “will need to be careful in allowing a dangerous drinking culture moving forward”.

Full Stop Australia has experienced a sharp increase in demand for their services.

Hayley Foster, CEO of Full Stop, a national support service for sexual assault survivors, said the “flood gates were opening again and hundreds of university and college complaints were being received from Victorian students”.

“We are talking about drink spiking, rowdy parties just for virgins, drinking games, initiations, hazing – it’s all alive and well,” she said.

“They rate the new students for their “hotness” and then they compete to sleep with them.

The guys say, ‘I don’t pay for prostitutes, all I have to do is get a girl drunk and pay for pints instead’”.

Adair Donaldson, director of Donaldson Law, a firm which assists survivors of sexual abuse and advises residential colleges on consent and safety matters, said every university in Australia was facing such issues.

“Some colleges are very proactive and want to get it right for proactive reasons but this case shows that if they don’t there will be very significant financial consequences,” he said.

Nick Duggal, partner at Moray and Agnew, said such colleges had a pastoral duty of care to students. “Tertiary institutions should therefore remain wary of such duties owed to their students in their onsite social activities,”he said.

Victoria University Student Union President Kate Benesovsky said sexual assault on campus and at university parties remained a big concern for students

“It is still prevalent within universities, unfortunately, and is going to be for a long time,” she said.

Nina Furnell, the director of End Rape of Campus, said student sexual assault survivors were once again contacting services for support now that classes and socialising were back on campus.

“In Victoria we are seeing a focus on supervisor-student offending whereby staff members are preying on the power imbalance of them and post-grad students,” she said.

A Monash University education student, who wished not to be named, told the Herald Sun that students often took it upon themselves to stop sexual assaults among the cohort.

A Monash University student said students took it upon themselves to stop assaults. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

“A lot of the time there has not been any direction on how to report sexual assaults that happen here (on campus). Faculties at times have been at a loss over what to do,” she said.

“It’s really disappointing that there doesn’t seem to be any formal procedures.”

Ms Foster said there needed to be independent complaints mechanisms clearly communicated to students for the culture to change.

It comes as a recent Human Rights Commission investigation slammed university colleges for “facilitating a culture which may increase the likelihood of sexual violence” including hazing practices, traditions and alcohol consumption.

A National Student Safety Survey of 43,000 students from March 2022 found one in six university students has been sexually harassed and one in 20 sexually assaulted since starting university.

A University of Melbourne spokesperson said: “Experience of sexual assault and sexual harassment is unacceptable and we continue to work decisively in addressing and eliminating all forms of sexual misconduct in our University.”