Incoming associate dean has cloudy past

By Anne Halliwell

[email protected]

A University of Kansas official involved in a controversial sexual assault case has been hired as UK’s new associate dean of students.

Nick Kehrwald will begin work at UK on Dec. 1.

According to a Sept. 9 article in the University Daily Kansan, the University of Kansas’ student newspaper, a now-sophomore student filed a report to her school’s Office of Institutional Opportunity and Access on May 5 of this year that a male student sexually assaulted her in November of 2013.

According to the Kansan, on June 30, during KU’s investigation, the Office of Institutional Opportunity and Access decided “‘more likely than not that [the respondent] assaulted [the female student] by kissing and touching [her] when [she was] incapacitated and unable to provide knowing and voluntary consent to engage in any sexual activity with him.’”

The Office of Institutional Opportunity and Access recommended that the student be put on “probation” for six months, meet with officials to discuss consent and pay any therapy charges the female student had incurred, the Kansan reported.

The Office of Institutional Opportunity and Access decision did not address the female student’s full allegations, the Kansan reported, nor did it address the fact that she claimed she told her assailant “no,” instead of merely being unable to give consent.

According to a Sept. 2 article in the Huffington Post, the male student admitted to university police that the female student had asked him to stop.

Kehrwald, the Director of Student Conduct and Community Standards at the University of Kansas, contacted the student to discuss the recommendations in accordance with standard policy.

According to the Kansan, he told the female student that the facts as documented did not add up to a violation of the University of Kansas’ sexual assault policy.

The female student told the Kansan that although the Office of Institutional Opportunity and Access had determined that the other student had “more likely than not engaged in non-consensual contact with her,” Kehrwald said he would not be punished.

The female student chose not to appeal the decision, according to the Kansan, though a Formal Hearing Panel was scheduled for Sept. 19.

Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, the University of Kansas’ Director of News and Media Relations, told the Kansan in September that no records would be released until the case was completed.

Kehrwald wrote in an email to the Kentucky Kernel that all comments would come from UK Public Relations.

UK spokesman Jay Blanton wrote in an email to the Kentucky Kernel that a search committee for the position interviewed Kehrwald and, during that process, Kehrwald raised the issue of the alleged sexual assault case and discussed it with the committee.

“As part of the due diligence process, university officials reached out to KU officials and discussed this issue as well,” Blanton wrote in the email. “Mr. Kehrwald’s account was entirely consistent with what officials at KU told us about the issue. He has years of experience in this important area; he comes highly recommended and the committee supported moving forward with the hire.”

Blanton would not discuss other candidates considered for the associate dean position with the Kernel.

Blanton said Kehrwald’s background in the legal field was an “important, critical set of skills to possess in working with these areas.”

According to his Linkedin profile, Kehrwald received a degree from the University of Iowa College of Law. He spent three years as a Student Conduct officer at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas and worked in student conduct for about four years at the University of Kansas.

Both UK and the University of Kansas base their sexual assault policies on Title IX requirements. Both include clear definitions of sexual assault and sexual violence, and both prohibit sex acts that are performed without the full and informed consent of all participants.

The University of Kansas and the Office of Institutional Opportunity and Access had not replied to the Kernel by the end of Monday.