In 2017, former professor of nutrition science Connie Weaver kicked off a month-long research program on Purdue’s campus, hoping to study the eating habits of boys and girls ages 11 to 15.
But in July of that year, the Camp DASH program would shut down two weeks early after a flood of reports of assault, voyeurism, sexual harassment and rape involving the minor participants of the study.
The chaos ultimately resulted in police investigations and multiple lawsuits against Purdue and Indiana University, the universities involved in the study.
In January, the Exponent successfully obtained the April settlement terms of a lawsuit against Purdue and IU by a participant’s parent, who is known as L. Lauderdale in court documents.
After an almost five-year cycle of court proceedings between Lauderdale and the universities, Purdue and IU finally settled to pay $400,000 to Lauderdale and their daughter as “compensation for alleged injuries and other compensable damages,” according to the settlement terms.
Lauderdale contended in the lawsuit that inadequate staffing and mismanagement of Camp DASH caused the behavioral problems and crimes reported in the study, including one incident in which a nude video of their underaged daughter was spread on social media among the program’s 78 participants.
“(Purdue and IU) failed in the exercise of reasonable care to understand backgrounds of children recruited for (Camp DASH) to determine if said children had delinquent, social or behavioral issues that would be considered a risk … to other children participants,” Lauderdale’s complaint with the court read. “(Purdue) failed in its conduct to design, implement and monitor the safety protocols or procedures for children attending (Camp DASH).”
Chaos in Camp DASH
Among numerous reported behavioral issues among Camp DASH’s participants, a pattern of physical and sexual abuses between the participants was reported during and after the June to July summer camp.
According to Lauderdale’s complaint and reports obtained in previous Exponent reporting, between July 12-18 of 2017 a male participant made repeated and unwanted sexual advances toward a female lab technician, a parent reported sexual activity between the their daughter and another participant, a male participant choked a fellow child and committed battery on another and a female participant tried to remove the pants of another male and “stick her fingers in his anus.”
An unnamed counselor told the Exponent in 2017 that “one child who (the counselors) had problems with before picked up a sauna rock in a towel … walked over to another child and pressed it … just above his buttocks and just burned him.”
During the program’s initial sessions, physical and sexual altercations among participants were common, including in one incident in which a participant threatened another by falsely claiming he had a gun and a knife, according to previous Exponent reporting.
In another incident, a participant reportedly choked another participant and pinned him against a wall, according to another lawsuit filed against Purdue in 2019.
Internal investigation
Numerous issues, which Lauderdale and other parents blamed on inadequate staffing of Camp DASH and lack of supervision of the child participants, would prompt Purdue officials to end the program two weeks early, but not before prompting police and internal investigations into conduct at the camp.
A November 2017 internal investigation by Purdue would find that the design of Camp DASH, the program’s unofficial name, “was inadequate to provide a safe environment for all of the participants.”
Led by Vice President for Ethics and Compliance Alysa Rollock, the investigation uncovered numerous arrests and dismissals of participants for allegedly committing acts of violence against other minors in the study, including an 11-year-old.
“One participant required transport to a hospital for medical treatment as a result of the violence,” the report read.
According to Rollock’s report, the low number of counselors and staff members in charge of the study only worsened behavioral issues. At one point in the program, there was one counselor for every 26 participants.
Rollock also determined a “lack of back-up activities, poor scheduling and a lack of authority on the counselors’ end only worsened problems during the study,” the Exponent previously reported. “Frequent and extended periods of downtime meant participants were often unsupervised.”