BATON ROUGE - Due to recent controversy involving the effectiveness of Title IX both locally and nationally, the WBRZ Investigative Unit looked at data LSU is required to report and found that of the 300 sexual assault reports made from 2022 to 2025, only three resulted in discipline. 

In the case of LSU student Kendall Danielle, who claims she was raped by an LSU football player, her accused rapist was given a two-semester suspension.

Another woman who spoke to the WBRZ Investigative Unit anonymously said her alleged abuser was given a suspension and a note in his transcript.

At Cornell University in New York, seven students were allegedly allowed to write essays to avoid punishment after they were accused by another student of gang rape. 

Adopted in 1972, Title IX is a federal statute intended to prohibit sex or gender discrimination in an educational setting.

According to Baton Rouge Attorney Michael Victorian, sexual assault and domestic violence fall under Title IX because they are offenses based on gender. Sexual harassment or abuse is considered an impediment to equal access to education, according to Victorian. 

Though sexual assault is a crime, he says the Title IX process and criminal investigation are separate from one another. If someone is found responsible in a Title IX proceeding, it doesn't have an impact on if they are guilty or not. 

An educational institution cannot bring criminal charges, and it is not required to report crimes to police; however following the Husch-Blackwell report in 2020 that detailed massive failures in how LSU handled and reported Title IX complaints, the state legislature passed a new law requiring state universities to publish information on sexual assault claims.

Publicly available data across the entire LSU system show 331 sexual assault claims (291 of which were at LSU's main campus) were made through Title IX from 2022 to 2025. Of those 331 cases, 303, or more than 91 percent, were reported as closed.

The data shows about half were closed because the person making the complaint did not respond to investigators. About a quarter were closed because the person said they only wanted support or counseling. Another 26 cases were closed because the complainant decided not to pursue further action.

Only three cases in more than 300 filed had informal resolutions, meaning the respondent was likely disciplined in some way. Information provided by LSU says three students were suspended.

It is not known whether any of those three cases led to criminal charges because Title IX reports do not include that information.

In that same four-year time period, LSU police took criminal reports on 202 sexual assaults, but it does not provide any information on how many were actually prosecuted.