A STUDENT is suing her college after alleging that she was raped by the father of a family she was staying with while studying in Japan.
Erika Eisenberg's lawsuit against Earlham College in Indiana could dramatically increase the legal liability of all universities that send students abroad.
If she is successful, strict United States law governing sexual harassment on campuses could be considered to apply to all 48,000 American students of US universities who study overseas each year, and the traditional waivers of liability the students sign before they go could be considered worthless.
The college says the waiver Ms Eisenberg signed when she applied to study abroad exempts the school from liability. Her attorneys dispute this.
Jerry Leaphart, Ms Eisenberg's attorney, said: "The law as I see it would mandate sexual harassment policies that are adopted by American universities having application abroad to the same extent that they have in the United States. By extension, other universities would have to implement their sexual harassment programmes globally."
The case could also vastly increase insurance and administrative costs.
Ms Eisenberg was placed by her institution at a college in Tokyo last year and assigned to live with a family who were paid for her room and board.
Her lawsuit states that she complained to college representatives in Tokyo that her host father "began a continuous, ongoing pattern of verbal and sexual harassment and sexual abuse". He forcibly attempted to kiss her, pressed up against her and boasted to her of his sexual prowess, she claims, adding that her complaints were ignored. In April, 1996, she alleges he raped her. When she went for help to the Earlham representatives, Ms Eisenberg says, they referred her not to doctors, police or US Embassy officials but to a Japanese therapist who, she says, implied she had provoked the rape.
"They did nothing about it," Mr Leaphart said. "They in fact laughed and scoffed and essentially said to our client, 'Well, it's your fault'."
Earlham says its programme leaders in Japan had offered to remove Ms Eisenberg from her hosts before the alleged rape, but she refused. Afterwards, the college says, they urged her to go to the police and to the hospital, but she again refused. "They treated her comments with concern and responded professionally," the college said in response to the lawsuit.
"It is the clear policy of the college that its agents and representatives never take such charges lightly," the college said.
Earlham has also questioned Ms Eisenberg's motives, and says her attorneys have offered to drop their suit in exchange for $10 million.
Peter Smith, a spokesman for the college, which has 28 study-abroad programmes in 20 countries, said: "We would hope that colleges and universities would not pull back from a commitment to study-abroad programmes. We're constantly conscious of providing a safe environment for students to study abroad."
Robert Aalberts, a business-law professor at the University of Nevada, who has studied liability in study-abroad programmes, says foreign study programmes have been spared from much litigation. He says some may have become complacent as a result.
Even if it does not set a precedent, the Eisenberg case has left a mark by creating anxiety among university administrators in the US and abroad.
"Colleges see it as a threat to their bottom line. College administrators don't like to be vulnerable to lawsuits," Mr Aalberts said. And partner universities abroad, he said, "read these horror stories and they look at the American legal system and they think about associating with a US university that is vulnerable to this legal system, and they're alarmed by that too".