Florida State Defends Jameis Winston Investigation in Letter to Students

Florida State University released an open letter to its community on Friday in an attempt to offset what it describes as a "drumbeat of misinformation" concerning its investigation into the 2012 sexual assault allegation against football star Jameis Winston.

The statement posted on its official site, which includes an 18-step timeline highlighting its handling of the situation and the Title IX obligations associated with it, doesn't name Winston. It refers to him as "the athlete," but the details are in line with his situation.

Florida State said the main reason for its silence on the issue was in order to protect students. It also explains why it decided to speak out now:

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But as we expect other stories to appear, it is abundantly clear that the continual drumbeat of misinformation about the University's actions causes harm to our students, faculty, alumni, supporters and the FSU community as a whole. Because of this, and within the constraints of state and federal privacy laws, we want to share with you more detail to set the record straight.

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The university states it immediately responded after learning of a possible sexual assault and passed the case to the Tallahassee Police Department after learning the alleged incident occurred off-campus.

It went on to explain why the Title IX administration was not notified about the case, which was at the time no longer being pursued by the police:

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The Athletics Department also considered accounts by the athlete and two other FSU student athletes who were present at the encounter. All three independently described it as consensual. Based on that and the TPD's decision, the Athletics Department did not file a report with the University's Title IX administrator or the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities.

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A decision was then made to send the case to the State Attorney's Office for further review. FSU asserts it attempted to help protect the complainant's personal information from the public and followed up with a Title IX investigation.

Based on the information available, it was announced in February they would not move forward with it unless new details were brought to light. Two months later, the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights began to look into Florida State's handling of the situation.

After getting cooperation from the complainant, Florida State reopened the Title XI investigation and notes it's currently approaching a "final resolution of the complaint."

The university states it's also working with the Department of Education on its inquiry into the matter:

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The University takes sexual assault very seriously. The University is also cooperating fully with the U.S. Dept. of Education investigation into this matter. Indeed, it was the University that informed the DOE nearly six months ago about the Athletics Department knowledge of the case.

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Iliana Limon Romero and Brendan Sonnone of the Orlando Sentinel provided a response from the accuser's lawyer, John Clune, about the open letter. He claims it's filled with errors and is just an attempt to get in front of another story that will be released:

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Florida State knows that there is a big story about to break from the NY Times and their PR team is trying to do a little preventative damage control. The obvious news in this statement is that senior athletic department officials met with Winston and his lawyer one month after the rape occurred then decided to hide it from the Title IX office.

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He also accused Florida State of attempting to break laws to protect its football program:

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The statement's timeline is full of errors but it shows that we can add both [the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act] and the victim-advocate privilege to the list of laws Florida State is willing to break to protect this football program. What else can the school do wrong in this mess? The whole country is moving toward improving the response to campus rape while Florida State still backpedals the other way.

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Winston has continued to play throughout the process. He's denied any criminal acts and, last December, the state attorney decided against charging the quarterback. He was suspended for one game earlier this season for a separate incident.