Former Kent State softball player’s Title IX case reaches settlement

In 2016, former softball player and Kent State student Lauren Kesterson filed a lawsuit against the university after she alleged that she was raped by Tucker Linder, the son of former Kent State softball coach Karen Linder and she felt her Title IX rights were violated when Linder failed to report the allegation to the university. In February of 2021, a settlement was reached in the case. 

She filed a Title IX lawsuit against Kent State alleging its lack of action against her sexual assault claim. The case was dismissed in Nov. 2018 when District Court Judge Sara Lioi stated there was no supporting evidence that Kent State ignored the Title IX mandate. In December, Kesterson appealed the dismissal. Then what happened? 

Kesterson’s complaint was filed in February 2016 and the case was dismissed after she was granted a settlement in February 2021. The settlement took that length of time to be reached due to the appellate process, said Ashlie Sletvold, one of Kesterson’s attorneys. 

In the end, the case was resolved and dismissed, and according to United States District Court documentation, Kesterson was paid a $100,000 settlement in addition to the $30,000 she was awarded in a mandamus dispute that was the result of what court documents state was Kent State’s failure to produce requested public records in a timely manner. 

A mandamus is a legal document issued as a court order requiring a person to perform a statutory duty.

Public court records show that Kesterson sent a voluminous public record request to Kent State seeking numerous documents about the university’s handling of her rape, cover-up of complaints, and the decision to permit Linder to resign and receive a bonus payment rather than fire her. She was given partial access to some, but the university objected to the remaining requests as overbroad, meaning the request was too vague. 

Kesterson filed a writ of mandamus on April 21 2016, an action asking the Supreme Court to require the university to respond to her public record requests. Kent State asked that the writ be dismissed, and the request was denied.

“There’s sort of two separate buckets of Title IX for women in the university context, and this kind of motions both of them together,” Sletvold said. “One is women’s participation in sports allowing women equal opportunity to compete and to have had the chance to understand the beauty of being part of a team sport at specifically, at the college level,” Sletvold said.

Another component of Title IX is related to how sexual assaults against women are handled by universities. 

Judge Sara Lioi was contacted and could not be reached for comment. 

Sletvold said that, while she can’t speak for Kesterson directly, the settlement amount was a reasonable result Kesterson might have agreed to before the university budgeted $600,000 to fight the case. Sletvold said she does not understand why defense counsels wait so long to settle cases. 

Lauren Kesterson could not be reached for comment. 

“In general, I find in my practice that cases go on much longer than they need to,” Sletvold said.  “And then at times, it is the fact that defense counsels can bill hourly for doing the work for a long, long time and can make a lot of money that way. That tends to delay a case that three of the four participants, meaning plaintiff, plaintiff’s counsel, defended defendants, counsel, three of those parties have an interest in this being over quickly. And the only one that doesn’t is defense counsel, because then they don’t make any money.” 

A representative of Kent State University was contacted in connection to this case and declined to comment.