Former LSU student slams LSU, other La. universities for sexual assault mishandlings

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - A woman who says LSU failed to protect her and others after she was raped on campus is sharing her story as part of a massive Title IX lawsuit against several Louisiana universities.

In 2015, Mayumi Dickerson told LSU she was raped in her dorm room by a man named Victor Silva. He had already been accused of sexual assault at the time and later transferred to two other Louisiana schools where he was reported for the same offense. He was arrested but never charged. Dickerson said not seeing anyone held accountable for the last seven years has been the toughest part.

“That universities can just pass on the problem from university to university and the assailant can get the degree that I’ve been struggling to get,” said Dickerson.

Dickerson added her grades dropped as a result of her trauma. She was eventually expelled from LSU for poor grades. She described the school’s response to her case as heartbreaking.

Dickerson is one of several people suing Louisiana’s universities. The lawsuit claims to lay out how each of the schools involved failed to follow a law passed in 2015.

“And I want to make sure that these universities, particularly LSU, under new leadership put a stop to the sexual assault that occurs on their campus,” said Dickerson’s attorney, Bakari Sellers.

The 2015 law mandates communication and coordination between Louisiana’s public universities and law enforcement. Those laws were strengthened in the legislature in 2021 after much frustration over the alleged mishandling of reports.

Dickerson said if she could say one thing to each president of the universities involved, it would be this.

“Think of your students as everyone under your purview as a family member. You don’t want what happened to me to happen to anyone in your family,” explained Dickerson.

We did reach out to LSU for an interview to respond to all of this. But because this is pending litigation, the university declined.

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