Photo by Brett Bowers

A lawsuit filed against Howard University on Wednesday claims that officials did not act swiftly in resolving reports of sexual assault by five female students, while failing to provide the women with counseling and academic accommodations, among other resources.

The federal lawsuit identifies the women as Jane Does 1-5—three of whom are still students at the historically black college. They reported incidents to the university between 2014 and 2016, stating they were sexually assaulted by male students or employees.

The lawsuit document, which was published by Fox 5 News, lays out what the victims went through after filing their complaints, and how university officials responded in condescending ways, or not at all for extended periods of time.

Jane Doe 2 left the university after officials didn’t respond to her complaint of being raped by a resident assistant because she felt unsafe on campus, according to the lawsuit.

Six months after she filed the report, and after “public criticism brought attention to Howard’s deliberate indifference,” an official reached out to Jane Doe 2 to conduct an investigation.

Howard’s Title IX policy states that officials are supposed to investigate claims within 60 days, according to the lawsuit.

Jane Doe 1, after waiting for a response for six weeks after filing her complaint, “started a Twitter storm criticizing Howard’s mishandling” of her complaint, according to the lawsuit. In response to the tweets that prompted a protest on campus, Howard’s dean of student affairs told Jane Doe 1 “you embarrassed your family by doing that.”

Jane Doe 1 also found out that her assailant is the same resident assistant who raped Jane Doe 2 about five months earlier.

“Initially I was enraged, but I also had this weird feeling of vindication,” Jane Doe 2 told BuzzFeed News, which first reported the lawsuit. “When I was there, I felt like no one believed me. I felt like they were always on his side, they always believed his story, they were protecting him. It was all him, him, him.”

The university eventually concluded that the resident assistant “engaged in non-consensual sexual contact” with Doe 2 and suspended him from campus for two years, according to the suit, which adds that Jane Doe 1 was never informed that he’d been removed or if her case was resolved.

Another student in the lawsuit said she told officials that she was sexually abused by a Howard police officer and requested counseling services because she was depressed and felt suicidal. After four months, Jane Doe 3 hadn’t received the help, according to the lawsuit. She was then fired from her job and began failing her classes as a result of worsening emotional health.

Five months later, Jane Doe 3 requested to see the record of her report and an employee at the school’s counseling center told her “she should be careful with her records because people will ‘judge her’ for her file, implying she should be embarrassed by her sexual assault or subsequent requests for medical treatment,” which she never received, according to the lawsuit.

Women in the suit also accused university officials of taking away financial aid, lying about case details, taking over seven months to close an investigation, and more.

While the university doesn’t comment on pending litigation, spokesperson Crystal Brown said that Howard “takes very seriously all allegations of sexual assault, sexual harassment, domestic violence, and gender-based discrimination occurring on the university’s campus or involving the university’s students.”

She said that this commitment “is evidenced by our rigorous enforcement of the university’s Title IX Policy on Prohibited Sexual Harassment and Gender-Based Discrimination in Education Program and Activities. The university has been, and remains, committed to diligently investigating any such allegations to ensure a safe and healthy community for our faculty, staff and students.”

The lawsuit asks that the court declare that Howard violated its Title IX policies, demand that the college revise those policies, and give each woman compensatory and punitive damages, among other things.

This post has been updated with a statement from Howard University.