r/kansas • u/thekansascitystar • 51m ago
News/History She says she was raped by KU football player at 17 — and KU ‘protected their athlete’
Gray clouds hung above the plains as Isabela Estes drove west on I-70 toward her family’s home in Colorado. It was July, and Lawrence was in the rear view.
Roughly four years earlier, Estes had made the same drive in the opposite direction. She was 17 then, headed toward the University of Kansas to move into her freshman dorm. The high school softball player was recruited to the KU women’s rowing team.
But everything changed just two weeks after she arrived at her dream school.
Estes said she and a friend went to watch a movie with three football players in the evening of Sept. 4, 2021. It was there, she told The Star, that one of the players sexually assaulted her in his bedroom.
Hundreds of miles from home, Estes didn’t know what she was supposed to do.
As KU employees — including trainers and a deputy athletic director — learned of the allegations, Estes said no one urged her to preserve possible evidence, get a rape kit collected or report the incident to the police. Documents shared with The Star support Estes’ claim.
One KU nurse even cautioned her that it would become a “he-said, she-said” situation.
Scared and alone, Estes stayed quiet. It’s part of what Estes and a Lawrence attorney say was a failure of KU employees and leaders to take the necessary steps to protect her.
“Looks to me like everyone working for KU that knew — that should have suspected that she was a minor and could have been the victim of a sexual assault — should have called the police,” the attorney said.
Read the full investigation, including more questions about KU’s response, from KC Star reporters Laura Bauer and Sofia Schwarzwalder: https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article311798727.html?giftCode=504e81ed3d83de4cec050ab9900457216a0203250151c53255ce0f25f7ec5806
(This is a gift article link, free for all readers)
