ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 1, 1995 TAG: 9512010030
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: BETTY HAYDEN AND ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITERS
A former Virginia Tech student says the University Judicial System failed her after a football player she accused of sexual assault was allowed to stay in school and keep his spot on the Hokie roster.
The player's attorney, David Paxton, contends his client is innocent and "whatever occurred between them was consensual."
Christy Brzonkala's accusation against Tony Morrison - and her suggestion that the university went easy on him because he is a football player - became public this week, after she talked with Tech's campus newspaper, the Collegiate Times.
Brzonkala says Morrison assaulted her in his dorm room during the first month of her freshman year, in September 1994.
She also accused Morrison's roommate of assaulting her, but the judicial system exonerated him.
Brzonkala says the assaults occurred after she had returned from a friend's off-campus apartment and accepted an invitation from Morrison, whom she did not know, to visit his dorm room.
Brzonkala, who talked to The Roanoke Times Thursday night from her Fairfax County home, said she told a friend about the incident in January and later received counseling at the university's Women's Center. She said she'd been too embarrassed, frightened and ashamed to come forward earlier.
After telling her parents last spring about the incident, they encouraged her to pursue charges against Morrison and his roommate.
She didn't file criminal charges because so much time had passed, she said. But a university judicial hearing was held May 3. Morrison was found guilty of abusive conduct and suspended for two semesters.
Abusive conduct is defined in the Code of Student Conduct as "any use of words or acts against one's self or others that causes physical injury or that demeans, intimidates, threatens, or otherwise interferes with another person's rightful actions or comfort. This includes, but is not limited to, verbal abuse and physical batteries."
According to a May 22 letter from Dean of Students Cathryn Goree to Brzonkala, Morrison appealed the guilty finding, "claiming that his due-process rights were denied and the sanction was unduly harsh and arbitrary." Goree wrote that she denied the appeal.
Morrison then hired Paxton, who discovered a procedural error: Morrison had been charged with "sexual misconduct," but the university's sexual misconduct policy had not been drafted in time to be printed in the 1994-95 student code.
Virginia Tech officials conceded the error and granted Morrison a second hearing on the charges of abusive conduct.
In an Aug. 4 letter to Brzonkala, two hearing officers said they found Morrison guilty of abusive conduct. His penalty remained the same - suspension for the fall 1995 and spring 1996 semesters.
But on Aug. 21 - 17 days before the Hokies' first football game - university provost Peggy Meszaros reduced the sanction to probation and a one-hour counseling session. In a letter to Morrison, she called suspension "excessive when compared with other cases" of abusive conduct.
Paxton said the sanctions were harsh, because, from his perspective, Morrison was found guilty only of using abusive language. He also said that the entire judicial process left a lot to be desired.
"Every university has a judicial process that is ill-equipped to deal with problems of this nature."
Brzonkala's father isn't satisfied with the judicial process, either.
"We feel like the school has been covering this up, trying to sweep it under the carpet," Kenneth Brzonkala said.
Tech administrators were reluctant to talk about the case, citing strict privacy laws surrounding the University Judicial System.
Meszaros would not comment for this story.
Tech President Paul Torgersen said Thursday that he had asked Meszaros to review the case after student affairs administrators asked him to find an impartial reviewer for the second appeal.
"The feeling was, [student affairs officials] knew more than they should [concerning] ... a second, impartial review," Torgersen said.
"It isn't that I jumped in the middle of this."
Torgersen also said, "I observed absolutely no efforts to influence the provost one way or another."
Torgersen, in a letter to be printed today in the Collegiate Times, chastised the newspaper for reporting "only a tiny sliver of the reality - and none of the complexity of this situation."
He said Meszaros' review of the case was thorough, and that she changed the judicial system's sanction "because she found it inconsistent with sanctions imposed for similar offenses."
He also pointed out that Morrison "is not a criminal," that he "was not found guilty of a criminal act."
After learning Morrison would be allowed to stay in school and play football, Brzonkala decided not to come back to Tech. She said she couldn't risk running into him.
Brzonkala hasn't attended college since she left Tech but plans to enroll at George Mason University in January.
"I never wanted to get any money out of it - from Tech or from Tony. I just wanted him out of the school so I could go there."
Brzonkala said she waited until now to go public with her story because she wasn't strong enough before, but now she has 16 weeks of group therapy behind her.
"I can't just let it go. He's living his life like he wants to, and I'm suffering."
Some information for this story came from The Associated Press.
LENGTH: Long : 101 linesby CNB