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Over 3,000 civil lawsuits have been filed since the Adult Survivors Act opened a one-year window for survivors of sexual abuse to file lawsuits in New York state that would have previously fallen outside the statute of limitations. Nine of the suits named Syracuse University as a defendant, according to the state’s database for lawsuits.

The ASA, signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul in May 2022, allowed survivors to file lawsuits for a year starting on Nov. 24, 2022. Across the state, survivors filed a total of 110 separate lawsuits that named universities as defendants, including SU, Cornell University, Columbia University and several others.

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Beth Fegan, a class action attorney for the FeganScott law firm, said laws like the ASA that have been passed across the country in recent years have made it far easier for survivors to come forward.

“It’s finally allowing the law to catch up to trauma,” Fegan said. “The law now recognizes that trauma has prevented the survivors from coming forward and provides the appropriate look-back window to allow them to do so.”

Fegan said when an individual is abused as a young adult, they might not have the ability to bring their cases forward immediately.

“It’s very hard as an 18 or 19-year-old away from home for the first time to understand what’s happening, to have the support network and feel safe to report the abuse,” Fegan said. “They don’t have the framework and the experience to know what’s right or wrong or to feel safe and come forward.”

On Nov. 21, FeganScott filed a lawsuit under the ASA alleging that Conrad Mainwaring, a former SU employee and graduate student, used his position as a “dorm counselor” for Brewster Hall to sexually abuse the plaintiff and other male students in the fall of 1982.

The lawsuit is the latest of several to be filed against Mainwaring since August 2019, when former SU students first came forward with allegations of sexual abuse. Since then, further allegations have been made, claiming SU had downplayed Mainwaring’s affiliation and employment with the university.

Of the nine lawsuits under the ASA where SU was a defendant, three of them were related to Mainwaring.

In another lawsuit, the plaintiff said she was raped by an intruder in SU’s School of Music in 1987. When she reported the incident, the lawsuit says, the director of the school told her “men get raped too,” and that she should “get back on the horse.”

One lawsuit involves a former professor in the Whitman School of Management, Theodore Wallin. The lawsuit states Wallin engaged in “unpermitted sexual contact” with the plaintiff in his university-owned office from October to December 1986. The lawsuit also alleges SU failed to properly investigate Wallin’s past history of sexual misconduct and “propensity for sexual abuse.”

Wallin was a professor and mentor for the plaintiff and the faculty advisor to their fraternity, the lawsuit says. According to his profile on Sage Publishing, Wallin was a Whitman faculty member for 34 years and currently works as a professor and dean for the School of Business at Sejong University in Seoul. As of Wednesday, Wallin appears on SU’s directory for emeriti faculty, which honors retired SU faculty members for contributions to the university.

Fegan said the willingness of survivors to now bring their cases forward was critical for them to overcome the trauma of their past abuse.

Survivors of sexual abuse decades ago might not have had access to resources or felt safe to report abuse from people in power and the institutions that allowed it happen, said William Rivera, interim executive director of the New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault.

“This look-back period allowed individuals to use this time to work through their trauma,” Rivera said. “It could take someone years to process their trauma, share their stories or have the courage to seek justice.”

Dozens of cases in the state name Columbia University alongside Robert Hadden, a gynecologist who allegedly sexually assaulted hundreds of his patients at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital for 20 years. Several more alleged Cornell University was at fault for Darius Paduch’s sexual abuse of his patients as a urologist.

Fegan said universities aren’t often incentivized to “air their dirty laundry” when students are sexually abused on campus or by employees.

“They’re always looking to recruit incoming students and trying to raise dollars from alumni,” Fegan said. “They’re trying to protect their endowments, and when abuse is uncovered, it puts dollars and recruits at risk.”

In accordance with university policy, SU did not comment on any piece of active litigation when first asked by The Daily Orange.

Fegan said New York has taken critical steps in recent years to protect survivors of sexual abuse — from the signing of the Child Victims Act in 2019, which opened a similar window for survivors of abuse to file cases, to the ASA. Fegan hopes the state will consider extending the time for survivors to bring any sexual abuse case forward.

“(Statutes of limitations) are just kind of an artificial barrier,” Fegan said. “The #MeToo movement went a long way towards pushing courts to understand why women don’t come forward … and I think that trend needs to continue.”

Published on December 7, 2023 at 1:26 am

Contact Richard: rcperrin@syr.edu | @richardperrins2