The Eagle’s editorial board is composed of its staff but does not represent every individual staffer’s views. Rather, it provides an insight into how The Eagle, as an editorially independent institution, responds to issues on campus.
Editor’s note: This story contains descriptions of sexual abuse and may be upsetting to some readers. Please see the bottom of this story for relevant resources.
Kris Estrada is a convicted voyeur who secretly recorded his peers at American University on at least 50 separate days, totaling an estimated 100 victims. He still has a stay-away order from campus. He is not a sympathetic figure, and we do not intend for this editorial to make him one.
But Estrada’s case is not only a story about him. It is a story about AU’s Office of Equity and Title IX — the infrastructure students are told to trust when something goes wrong — and about what happens when that infrastructure fails them.
According to a federal lawsuit Estrada filed in a Washington, D.C. district court last month, it is alleged that former Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Education Brad Knight contacted him via Grindr, a dating app for gay men, beginning in June 2024, when Estrada was a 19-year-old freshman, and later pressured him into a sexual act in a campus bathroom. The complaint also alleges that Knight recorded the encounter without Estrada’s consent. Knight denied the allegations.
Estrada filed a Title IX complaint, and his case was opened in January 2025. It was an almost yearlong process, dismissed without a full hearing and upheld on appeal. He is now suing the University for breach of contract and deliberate indifference under Title IX.
American University has moved to dismiss the suit, arguing that it went beyond the minimum legal requirements and found credibility issues with both parties.
We are not in a position to adjudicate these facts. But we are in a position to name what this case represents: yet another instance, in a sequence that has now stretched across multiple academic years, of the University mishandling or under-communicating cases involving sexual misconduct on campus.
In recent memory alone, this campus has seen multiple instances of voyeurism and other forms of sexual assault. These memories should be seen as a pattern, rather than isolated incidents that the University hopes people will forget.
The University’s motion to dismiss the suit argues that the relationship between Estrada and Knight did not meet the legal standard of severe, pervasive and objectively offensive harassment.
What the University’s motion obscures is the structural reality of what is being alleged: a university administrator, a married man who was 15 years older than Estrada and oversaw programs to which Estrada belonged, solicited a 19-year-old freshman on a dating app and allegedly pressured him into recorded sexual activity on campus. Whatever Estrada later did, in this case, he was a teenager, new to the institution, encountering a man with explicit institutional authority and implied social power over him.
The University’s complaint dismissal, as quoted in the court filing, said the office “found no evidence of coercion.” We are here to ask whether that determination reflects the full picture of what power dynamics should look like on our campus, through an administrative lens.
The Empower AU orientation materials meant to explain Title IX rights — which students have, in some cases, been threatened with registration holds for not completing — have been described by multiple students as outdated and insufficient. If students don’t know they have the right to demand accountability from the University, or think their demands will not be met with justice, they will not make demands to begin with. We see this as a structural failure by American University.
There has been a sustained, seemingly deliberate absence of communication surrounding this issue.
When an individual with a loaded firearm rode the Metrobus to campus in April 2024, American University sent campus-wide alerts. Students and incoming freshmen not yet on campus received a notification after the fact about what happened and how it was handled. This alert was the University’s way of saying that a threat to student safety requires both immediate action and thoughtful follow-up.
But when Estrada was allegedly recording students, no alert was given to those living on the University’s campus and attending classes alongside him. Even after his arrest, after his guilty plea to five counts of voyeurism and after court proceedings had been underway for months, the University said nothing publicly to the student body he had victimized.
The Clery Act requires universities to issue timely warnings when there is an ongoing threat to the campus community. It also, as written, gives universities broad discretion in determining what qualifies as an “imminent threat” — and in practice, that discretion has consistently excluded sexual violence. Federal enforcement of the Clery Act is minimal. American University, like most universities, has used that legal gray area to say as little as possible.
When The Eagle reached out about Estrada’s disappearance — before his arrest, before any public knowledge of what had happened — the University chose not to comment. It did not ask us to hold the story, but rather it said nothing. The University was actively pursuing the case and chose to avoid transparency with the student body.
Knight, who is currently a JD candidate at AU’s Washington College of Law, did not return calls or emails and told the court he needed more time to find a lawyer. His attorney, who represented him in earlier proceedings, was an adjunct professor at the Washington College of Law at the time.
The University advertises these systems openly. The Title IX resources are printed on bathroom stalls, included in orientation materials and featured prominently in promotional content. Some of those systems have genuinely helped students, and we do not want to discount that. The recent policy revisions to the Office of Equity and Title IX are evidence that the institution can respond when pressed.
But advertising a safety net and maintaining a safety net are not the same thing.
The amnesty policy — one of the few recent examples of the University working directly with students to produce meaningful policy change — was reached through genuine collaboration with students. Our perspectives shaped the outcome. The result was better for everyone.
We are asking for a clear, publicly available policy that explains when and how American University notifies students of threats to campus safety — not just active shooter situations, but the slower, quieter threats that have repeatedly proven to cause real harm at American University.
We are asking for transparency about what the Title IX office is doing, not just whether it technically follows the procedures the law requires. We are asking for the University to treat its student body and student organizations as partners and stakeholders.
Our student body is paying attention, and we are capable of engaging with difficult, complicated truths, including ones that do not involve sympathetic protagonists.
American University has a choice. It can continue to treat each of these incidents as isolated, respond minimally when legally required and wait for the news cycle to pass. Or it can acknowledge the pattern, work with its students and build a safety infrastructure that actually matches what it advertises.
Students are still willing to work together. They hope the University is, too.
Students who have experienced sexual assault or harassment can seek support through confidential resources such as the University’s Center for Well-Being Programs and Psychological Services, the Student Health Center, the Kay Spiritual Life Center or the following hotlines:
- Collegiate Assistance Program: 1-855-678-8679
- Rape, Abuse, Incest, National Network (RAINN) anonymous chat
- RAINN hotline: 1-800-656-4673
- DC Rape Crisis Center: 202-333-7273
- Network for Victim Recovery of DC (NVRDC): 202-742-1727
This piece was written by Quinn Volpe and edited by Addie DiPaolo and Gabrielle McNamee. Copy editing done by Avery Grossman and Arin Burrell. Fact checking done by Andrew Kummeth and Luca Palma Poth.
editor@theeagleonline.com
