Victims get time with trustees

The same day that Ohio State agreed to allow those who say they were sexually assaulted by Dr. Richard Strauss the opportunity to speak before the Board of Trustees, the university filed a motion to dismiss an amended complaint in a class-action lawsuit filed by some of them.

Brian Garrett, a former Ohio State student who said he witnessed and experienced sexual abuse by Strauss, submitted a request Friday on behalf of a group of former students seeking to address the board.

Garrett wrote that group members want to share their experiences of sexual abuse as well as to discuss resources for victims, policies to prevent future abuse and other campus culture changes to protect students.

On Friday afternoon, Ohio State officials announced that the university and Board of Trustees had accepted the victims’ request and will allot 20 minutesfor them to speak — the amount of time that Garrett had requested — during the full Board of Trustees meeting Friday.

Though it agreed to allow the victims to speak, Ohio State filed its second motion to dismiss a federal lawsuit that it faces from Garrett and other victims on statute-oflimitation grounds.

Garrett and the others had amended their original complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio in Columbus on Oct. 26, after the university filed a previous motion to dismiss the case Sept. 7 on the same grounds.

The statute-of-limitation laws in Ohio for Title IX cases is two years, attorneys for Ohio State note.