Morehouse College wants a sexual harassment lawsuit recently filed by a former student and two others dismissed, saying the lead plaintiff didn’t cooperate with the school’s efforts to investigate his claims.
Attorneys representing the all-male, historically Black college wrote in court documents filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Atlanta that the lead plaintiff, Michael Key’s, “sensationalization of his allegations – characterizing pinching of cheeks as sexual assault or sexual abuse, for instance – minimizes the experiences of other victims who have actually undergone such assault or abuse.”
Key and two other unnamed plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against Morehouse in late June claiming the college did little to investigate their complaints that two officials at the college sexually harassed them.
The college countered in court documents that Key did not respond to nine emails and failed to attend many meetings when the college tried to investigate his complaints.
Tiffany M. Simmons, an attorney representing Key, said her client unsuccessfully tried for about a year to get help from Morehouse administrators, and denied he was unhelpful.
“This is absolutely ludicrous,” Simmons said in a telephone interview Tuesday about the college’s claims. “That is an absolute lie.”
Her clients said the harassment began in 2018, shortly after they began their studies at Morehouse. They say the officials used crude language, sometimes in the presence of other students, to urge the students to “come out” as gay. In one instance, an official kissed the student’s stomach and tried to remove his pants and underwear, according to the lawsuit complaint.
The students say their complaints went largely ignored until Key posted several videos on Twitter that received more than 90,000 views in about 24 hours. Key and his attorneys held a news conference a week later detailing some of his complaints.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages. Key is no longer a Morehouse student, the college said in court records.
Morehouse said one official was fired and another official eventually “separated from the college” after internal investigations “despite Plaintiff Key’s repeated refusal to provide any information.”
“We outlined the immediate steps we took within the first 24 hours of being notified of the social media allegation and have carried forward with that investigation for more than a year,” Jose Mallabo, Morehouse’s vice president of marketing communications, said in a statement to the AJC. “(Friday’s) filing reflects some of the findings of that investigation and our position on the many false, sensationalized, or ambiguous claims within the lawsuit filed related to this case earlier this summer.”
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