Preventable Tragedy in the Lauren McCluskey Case: Addressing Campus-Based Intimate Partner Violence Under the Clery Act

Introduction

On October 22, 2018, Melvin Rowland entered the University of Utah’s campus to hunt down and kill his ex-girlfriend, Lauren McCluskey.^{1, 2} Lauren was a successful, twenty-one-year-old student-athlete and college senior set to graduate in May 2019.³ In contrast, Rowland was a thirty-seven-year-old convicted felon and registered sex offender who had hidden his true identity from Lauren, claiming instead to be a twenty-eight-year-old community college student named “Shawn Fields” studying computer science.⁴ After learning about Rowland’s true identity, she sought to end the relationship with support from her friends.⁵ During this time, as argued by the McCluskey family in its pending lawsuit, the University of Utah had the opportunity to protect Lauren,⁶ which might have saved her life.