College planning Larios memorial on heels of Title IX settlement
Plans for a memorial honoring former softball player Fatimaw Larios, a 2015 suicide victim, are in the early stages, CSC President Randy Rhine said Tuesday.
The memorial is one of several terms of an agreement the college reached earlier this summer with Larios’ parents, Lissette Larios Roohbakhsh and Nelson Larios, both of California, who filed a dating violence lawsuit against the college under Title IX on Jan. 30, 2017. In that suit, the parents claimed the college did little to protect their daughter from an abusive boyfriend.
The college also agreed to pay, Roohbakhsh and Nelson Larios, $900,000, a sum covered by the college’s insurance.
In the suit document, the parents alleged: The college failed to “investigate reports by Fatima’s softball teammates and an assistant coach that Fatima was being beaten by her boyfriend;” “stop the dating violence;” “protect Fatima as her physical and emotional well-being were visibly deteriorating;” or “obtain the help Fatima needed.”
Any out-of-court settlement, by its nature, suggests that neither party committed any wrongdoing.
In addition to installing the memorial commemorating Fatima’s life, other nonmonetary terms in the official settlement agreement are:
> The college will provide annual suicide prevention training to its staff, faculty and students for the next 10 years. The scope of the training and all other details will be determined by the Nebraska State College System.
> The college will receive annual technical assistance with regard to its Title IX related policies, procedures and practices for the next three years beginning in 2020.
> The College will annually award a “Fatima Larios Spirit Scholarship” to a member of the women’s softball team. The terms did not specify the amount of the scholarship.
Rhine said that the several of the terms related specifically to Title IX assistance are new federally mandated requirements that the college was already planning to implement.