Aug 13, 2014 10:55 AM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

A student at Emerson College has accused the school of wrongfully causing her to drop out due to the way authorities poorly handled her sexual assault report.

According to the Huffington Post, Jillian Doherty filed her suit Friday in a U.S. District Court in Springfield, Mass. after previously filing two complaints against the school. Doherty accused the investigators following up on her complaint of not interviewing all potential witnesses and administrators of violating their own school's policies on handling sexual assault.

The initial complaint resulted in the U.S. Education Department's Office of Civil Rights (OCR) opening a Title IX/Clery Act investigation at Emerson. The school received a summons for Doherty's lawsuit Monday.

"It's got to be a horrible, horrible experience [to be sexually assaulted in college]," David Angueira, Doherty's attorney, told the HP. "Then when you go to help the only people you can ask for help - and you're stuck in that environment because you're going to school there, you're living there - and they turn their backs on you."

Title IX is a federal gender equity law that outlaws sexual discrimination and would require a school to properly investigate and adjudicate sexual assault. The Clery Act is a law that requires schools to be forthright and transparent regarding crimes committed on campus.

"The College will respond if and when it is appropriate to do so," Andy Tiedemann, a spokesman for Emerson, told the HP. "The College has and will continue to take the issue of sexual assault very seriously and has dedicated substantial resources toward the prevention of and response to sexual assault."

Doherty argues in her lawsuit that her assailant was found not responsible because they both were intoxicated during the incident and because her testimony at a disciplinary hearing differed from the story she had told a friend. Doherty went on to contend that her assailant also gave a different account at the hearing than he did in a written statement, which the disciplinary board apparently did not consider.

Schools may be punished with fines or a decrease in federal funding as a result of a Title IX/Clery Act investigation. Angueira said his client is seeking damages to compensate for tuition and injuries that put her in the hospital, but he would not disclose the monetary value.

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