Correction: A previous version of this story referred to the counseling center as the health center. The two are different entities.
The University of Oregon settled a lawsuit with two former counseling center whistleblowers for the amount of $425,000 in total Sunday. The whistleblowers, two employees at the University Counseling and Testing Center, claimed the university accessed the counseling records of “Jane Doe”—a student allegedly raped by UO basketball players—without her consent in 2014.
Jennifer Morlok and Karen Stokes filed their lawsuit in November 2015 against four administrators at the U.S. District Court in Eugene. Stokes was executive assistant in the Counseling Center; Morlok was Jane Doe’s therapist after the alleged assault. When they spoke out against the university, Stokes claimed she was being “forced to leave her position” by UO administration in March 2015, and Morlok faced a “hostile working environment” that made her resign October 2015, according to the lawsuit.
UO denied any wrongdoing in retrieving the counseling records. In a statement to the Oregonian, UO spokesman Tobin Klinger said the settlement “does allow all parties to move forward and avoid years of expensive litigation.” He said it’s not an admission of liability by the university or its employees that were listed in the original suit filed.
The university settled the lawsuit with Doe August 2015 for $800,000 and a four-year scholarship.
The three former basketball players named in the alleged incident, Damyean Dotson, Dominic Artis, and Brandon Austin, also filed lawsuits against the university. Those have yet to be resolved.