The Office of Civil Rights (OCR) will further investigate
Xavier University about the sexual assault cases involving Sean Marron.
The investigation will attempt to ascertain whether Xavier
University violated Title IX and if the handling of sexual assault is an individual problem or an institutional
problem.
Caitlin Pinciotti, a former Xavier student, is one of two victims who have filed complaints to the OCR after she was allegedly assaulted by Marron in November 2008.
Marron was mandated with a one-semester suspension after the hearing in March, but he was allowed to complete the spring semester. In March 2009, after Xavier University had issued the sanction but before the suspension had come into effect, Marron allegedly sexually assaulted another girl, Kalyn Burgio. Both Pinciotti and Burgio
pressed criminal charges against the accused. Hamilton County Court found Marron not guilty in October 2011.
“The judge found him not guilty because of personal biases which were extremely evident from the moment I took the stand,” Pinciotti said about the Marron trial. “To me, that is not justice and not the truth.” Burgio then filed a complaint to the OCR about the way Xavier University handled the proceedings and, since then, numerous
staff have been reassigned internally. Pinciotti has also brought forward her complaint to the OCR about the way that the University handled the case; she highlighted
that Marron’s suspension was too weak of a punishment and that Marron should not have been allowed to finish
the semester. “Xavier needs to step out of the Catholic tradition of sweeping things under the rug and realize
that it is not a university’s responsibility to ‘educate’ rapists,”
Pinciotti said. Pinciotti was also very critical of the punishment handed out by former Dean of Students Luther
Smith. “In a letter I wrote to Luther Smith, I warned him that if he allowed Sean to return to Xavier and he raped
again, Luther would only have himself to blame. I wonder how comfortably he sleeps at night now,” Pinciotti said.