District of Columbia
UDC law school hit with bias complaint from nonbinary student
Alleged victim sought protections from stalker on campus
A third-year student at the University of the District of Columbia’s David A. Clarke School of Law who self-identifies as a “non-binary, Black Femme” filed a discrimination complaint on Jan. 9 alleging that the school violated federal law by refusing to take action on campus to protect the student from domestic violence and stalking from a former boyfriend.
The student, D.C. resident Loreal Hawk, filed the complaint through their attorney before the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. Among other things, it alleges that the law school refused over a period of close to three years to provide accommodations such as allowing virtual attendance of classes to help safeguard Hawk from repeated stalking and threats of domestic violence from the ex-boyfriend, who’s referred to in the complaint as the “respondent” and is not identified by name.
The complaint says Hawk is philosophically opposed to police involvement in this type of domestic situation and that under federal law, colleges are required to provide a reasonable accommodation to protect students from domestic violence and stalking without requiring them to report the threats to campus police or a municipal police department.
The complaint charges that the UDC law school’s intentional refusal to act in support of Hawk violates Title IX of the U.S. Education Amendments Act of 1972, which bans discrimination at schools based on sex and gender identity. It charges that the school’s lack of action also violates another federal statute known as the Clery Act, which requires schools and colleges to take reasonable steps to safeguard students from threats of sexual harassment and stalking, among other hostile actions.
The 37-page complaint further calls on the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights to investigate and impose civil penalties against UDC for violating the two laws and to order the school to take emergency action to protect Hawk from further threats by the respondent between now and the time Hawk is scheduled to graduate in May of this year.
The UDC Clarke School of Law did not immediately respond to a request by the Washington Blade for comment on the complaint and whether it disputes the allegations included in the complaint.
Jim Bradshaw, a spokesperson for the Department of Education, said the department’s Office of Civil Rights “does not acknowledge specific complaints until they have been evaluated and accepted for investigation.” Bradshaw added, “We’ll be in touch,” implying his office would respond to press inquiries about the Hawk complaint at the appropriate time.
Hawk’s complaint, which was little noticed at the time it was filed in early January, surfaced on Monday at a D.C. Council Committee of the Whole oversight hearing on UDC-related matters when both Hawk and Hawk’s attorney, Megan Challender, brought up the complaint and Hawk’s allegations against UDC in testimony during the virtual hearing.
D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson (D-At-Large), who presided over the hearing, asked UDC President Ronald Mason, who also testified, to respond to the allegations made in Hawk’s complaint at a later time, but did not ask Mason to respond to the allegations at the Feb. 27 hearing.
The complaint says the respondent, who allegedly assaulted and continues to stalk Loreal Hawk, has no affiliation with the law school or UDC. It says he had been dating Hawk until Hawk attempted to end their relationship in October 2020, which it says prompted the respondent to physically assault Hawk, forcibly take Hawk’s car keys and drive Hawk against their will to Hawk’s apartment in D.C.
Once there, the complaint states, the respondent held Hawk as a prisoner in Hawk’s own apartment for a period of time until the law student persuaded the respondent to leave the apartment after being subjected to physical violence.
“When Mx. Hawk demanded that Respondent leave, Respondent lunged at Mx. Hawk, knocking Mx. Hawk to the ground,” according to the complaint. “Mx. Hawk was able to get free and lock themselves in the bathroom. Respondent tried to beat down the door, but eventually left,” the complaint says.
“After leaving, Respondent began repeatedly calling Mx. Hawk,” the complaint continues. “Between October 2020 and March 2021, Respondent directed a persistent course of conduct at Mx. Hawk that caused Mx. Hawk to reasonably fear for their own safety,” it says. “This included as many as 30 unwanted calls a day, text messages, and emails.” It says Hawk received many of the calls and text messages while on the UDC campus taking classes.
The complaint adds that, “Following over a year of relative respite from Respondent, Respondent’s course of conduct resumed on October 6, 2022, and continues to this day.”
It says UDC further violated the law by at one point informing Hawk that it could only take protective action if Hawk reported the threats to campus police or filed a report with D.C. police.
“Mx. Hawk does not feel comfortable reporting to the police,” the complaint states. “Mx. Hawk organizes in the police violence space and thus does not feel police will handle their situation in a way that would be adequate and best for their unique situation,” it says. “Further, Mx. Hawk is Black and nonbinary, two identities that experience high rates of disbelief by law enforcement and brutality at the hands of law enforcement,” the complaint says.
“Finally, Mx. Hawk fears possible escalation from Respondent if police were to become involved,” it says.
Hawk’s attorney, Megan Challender, an official with the legal services organization Network for Victim Recovery of DC, said she understands that some in the LGBTQ community might raise questions about her client’s concerns about dealing with D.C. police without knowing Hawk’s specific situation.
LGBTQ activists in D.C., including longtime transgender rights advocate Earline Budd, have pointed out that after many years of advocacy work by the LGBTQ community, D.C. police have put in place safeguards and police training programs to ensure supportive behavior and support for LGBTQ crime victims.
Activists, including Budd, point to the longstanding D.C. Police LGBT Liaison Unit, which provides services for LGBTQ crime victims and is called upon by other police units to assist in investigating crimes targeting LGBTQ people. Police officials have said many LGBTQ people also now serve openly as officers on the D.C. police force.
When asked if Hawk considered obtaining a D.C. Superior Court stay-away order to prohibit the respondent from engaging in stalking or harassing phone calls or contact with Hawk of any kind, which can be obtained without filing a police report, Challender said she could not provide that information because it would violate attorney-client privilege.
“Of course, we talked about options,” Challender told the Blade. “And to be clear, we wouldn’t expect an educational institution to act as a policing authority,” she said. “But there is a lot of stuff that could have been taken that was not offered and they were not really engaged with us on,” she said in referring to UDC law school officials.
Among the actions the university could have taken but did not, Challender said, is to allow Hawk to take some or all their classes virtually, which was the case for all students in 2020 during the peak of the COVID pandemic. Challender notes that the respondent in his phone calls and email and text messages to Hawk has made it clear he was surveilling the UDC campus and knew Hawk’s whereabouts, including the classrooms and building where Hawk’s classes were being held.
Another option UDC did not undertake was to issue its own no-contact order to the respondent, something most other schools routinely do for students being harassed, Challender said. She said her law office issued such a stay away order to the respondent, which the respondent ignored.
“Another option to consider would be providing Loreal with a parking spot in the garage underneath the building so that Loreal doesn’t have to park on the street and walk and experience harm on the street and instead can go directly into a secure building,” she said.
In their testimony before Monday’s D.C. Council hearing Hawk told how Hawk had high hopes and expectations of their role as law student at UDC
“Further, I was thrilled by the opportunity to attend my first Historically Black College or University, where I hoped to be nurtured and in community with BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) attorneys and advocates,” Hawk stated in their written testimony submitted to the D.C. Council. But all that changed after Hawk attempted to seek support and accommodations from the school in response to the domestic violence and stalking Hawk encountered from the respondent, Hawk says in their testimony.
“UDC Law’s response to my request for accommodations has been inadequate, endangering, or altogether absent,” Hawk told the D.C. Council hearing. “In the first iteration of this issue, UDC Law enacted a punitive measure, refused to notify me of Title IX and Clery Act accommodations, rescinded my scholarship, and failed to reinstate my scholarship once I performed the terms of our agreement,” their testimony states.
“I was repeatedly misgendered throughout the entire process and their actions indicated that I was being excluded, punished and ignored because of my intersectional identities as a non-binary, Black femme, and survivor of domestic violence,” Hawk told the Council hearing.
The Washington Blade will report the UDC School of Law’s official response and answer to the complaint as soon as it either decides to publicly release it or the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, where the complaint was filed, makes it part of the public record.
District of Columbia
Judge issues revised order in Capital Pride stalking case
Defendant Darren Pasha agreed to accept less restrictive directive
A D.C. Superior Court judge on April 30 reinstated an anti-stalking order requested by the Capital Pride Alliance against local gay activist Darren Pasha based on allegations that Pasha engaged in a year-long effort to harass, intimidate, and stalk the organization’s staff, board members, and volunteers.
The reinstated order by Judge Robert D. Okun followed an April 17 court hearing in which he rescinded a similar order he initially approved in February on grounds that more evidence was needed to substantiate the need for the order.
At the time he rescinded the earlier order he scheduled an evidentiary hearing for April 29 at which three Capital Pride staff members testified in support of the anti-stalking order. But Okun discontinued the hearing after Pasha, who was representing himself without an attorney, announced he was willing to accept a revised, less restrictive temporary restraining order.
The judge said Pasha’s decision to accept a restraining order made it no longer necessary to continue the evidentiary hearing. He then asked Capital Pride and Pasha to submit their suggested revisions for the order which they submitted a short time later.
The case began when Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C.-based LGBTQ group that organizes the city’s annual Pride events, filed a civil complaint on Oct. 27, 2025, against Pasha, accusing him of engaging in a year-long effort to harass, intimidate, and stalk Capital Pride staff, board members, and volunteers. It includes a 167-page addendum of “supporting exhibits” that includes multiple statements by unidentified witnesses.
Pasha, who has represented himself without an attorney, has argued in multiple court filings and motions that the stalking allegations are untrue. In his initial court response to the complaint, he said it appears to be a form of retaliation against him for a dispute he has had with Capital Pride and its former board president, Ashley Smith, who has since resigned from the board.
Similar to his earlier anti-stalking order against Pasha, Okun’s reissued order on April 30 states, a “Temporary Anti-Stalking Order is GRANTED, effective immediately and remaining in effect until further order of the Court or final disposition of this matter.”
It adds, “The defendant shall not contact, attempt to contact, harass, threaten, or otherwise communicate with any protected person, directly or indirectly, including through third parties, social media, electronic communication, or any other means.”
Unlike the earlier order, which did not identify the “protected persons” by name, the latest order includes a list of 34 people, 13 of whom are Capital Pride staff members or volunteers, including CEO Ryan Bos and Chief Operating Officer June Crenshaw. The other 21 people listed are identified as Capital Pride board members, including board chair Anna Jinkerson.
Possibly because Pasha addressed this in his suggested version of the order, the judge’s revised order says Pasha is allowed to visit the D.C. LGBTQ+ Community Center, where the Capital Pride office is located, if he gives the community center a 24 hour advance notice that he will be visiting the center, which hosts many events unrelated to Capital Pride. The earlier order required him to stay at least 100 feet away from the Capital Pride office.
The new order also prohibits Pasha from attending 21 named events that Capital Pride Alliance either organizes itself or with partner organizations that were scheduled to take place from April 30 through June 21. The order says he is allowed to attend the two largest events, the June 20 Pride Parade and the June 21 Pride Festival and Concert, in which 500,000 or more people are expected to attend.
It says Pasha is also allowed to attend the June 15 Pride At The Pier event organized by the Washington Blade.
But for those three events the order says he is restricted from entering “ticketed and controlled access areas.”
At the April 29 court hearing, Okun also scheduled a mandatory remote mediation session for July 23, in which efforts would be made to resolve the civil complaint case brought by Capital Pride without going to trial.
District of Columbia
Both sides propose revised orders in Capital Pride stalking case
Defendant Darren Pasha agreed to accept less restrictive directive
An evidentiary hearing in D.C. Superior Court on April 29 in which the Capital Pride Alliance presented three of four planned witnesses to testify in support of its civil complaint that D.C. gay activist Darren Pasha engaged in a year-long effort to harass, intimidate, and stalk its staff, board members, and volunteers ended abruptly at the direction of the judge.
Judge Robert D. Okun announced from the bench that the hearing, which was intended provide Capital Pride an opportunity to present evidence in support of its request to reinstate an anti-stalking order against Pasha that the judge temporarily rescinded on April 17, was no longer needed because Pasha stated at the hearing that he is willing to accept a revised, less restrictive temporary restraining order.
Pasha made that statement after two Capital Pride witnesses — June Crenshaw and Vincenzo Volpe — each testified in support of the stalking allegations against Pasha for over an hour under questioning from Capital Pride attorney Nick Harrison and under cross-examination from Pasha, who is representing himself without an attorney.
After Capital Pride’s third witness, Tifany Royster, testified for just a few minutes, and after the judge called a recess for lunch and to attend to an unrelated case, Pasha announced that after obtaining legal advice he determined that he was unsuited to continue cross-examining the witnesses. He said he would be willing to accept a significantly less restrictive temporary restraining order.
Okun then ruled that the evidentiary hearing was no longer needed and directed Capital Pride and Pasha to submit to him their version of a revised stay away order. He said he would use their proposed revisions to help him develop his own order, which he would issue after deliberating over the matter.
He also scheduled a mandatory remote mediation session for July 23, in which efforts would be made to resolve the case without going to trial. He then adjourned the hearing at 3:50 p.m.
The online Superior Court docket for the case stated after the hearing ended that the judge would issue “a new modified Temporary Protective Order,” but it did not say when it would be issued.
Shortly before the April 29 hearing began at 11 a.m., Harrison filed a “Draft Temporary Anti-Stalking Order” that included a list of 34 “Protected Persons” that Harrison said during the hearing were affiliated with Capital Pride Alliance as staff and board members, volunteers, and others associated with the group.
The proposed order stated, “The defendant shall not contact, attempt to contact, harass, threaten, or otherwise communicate with any protected person, directly or indirectly, including through third parties, social media, electronic communications, or any other means.”
The proposal represented a significant change from Capital Pride’s initial civil complaint against Pasha filed in February that Pasha claimed called for him to stay away at least 200 yards from all Capital pride staff, board members, and volunteers without naming them. Okun granted that stay away request in February but reduced the stay away distance to 100 feet.
Capital Pride attorney Harrison disputes Pasha’s interpretation of the order, saying the 100-foot stay-away was for events, not for individual Capital Pride staff, volunteers, or board members. He said the order prohibited Pasha from engaging in any way with the Capital Pride staffers, volunteers or board members.
But the proposed order Capital Pride at first submitted at the April 29 hearing also called for Pasha to stay away from and to not attend as many as 25 Capital Pride events scheduled to take place this year from April 30 through June 21 and for him to say away from the Capital Pride office located at 1827 Wiltberger St., N.W., which is the building in which it shares with the DC LGBTQ Community Center.
At the April 29 hearing, at Pasha’s request, Okun called on Capital Pride to consider allowing Pasha to attend at least the two largest events — the Capital Pride Parade and Festival — which draw over 500,000 participants.
Harrison said in a follow-up message to the judge following the hearing that Capital Pride would allow Pasha to attend those two events and one other as long as he stays away from “ticketed and controlled access areas.”
At an April 17 status hearing Okun rescinded the earlier stay away order at Pasha’s request, among other things, on grounds that it was too vague and didn’t provide Pasha with sufficient specific information on who to stay away from. It was at that hearing that Okun scheduled the April 29 evidentiary hearing, saying it would give Capital Pride a chance to provide sufficient evidence to justify an anti-stalking order and Pasha an opportunity to challenge the evidence.
In his own response to the initial civil complaint filed in February and in subsequent court filings, Pasha has strongly denied he engaged in stalking and has alleged that the complaint was a form of retaliation against him over a dispute he has had with Capital Pride and its former board president, Ashley Smith.
Like its initial complaint filed in February, Capital Pride filed a multipage document at the start of the April 29 hearing with written testimony from staff members and volunteers who allege that Pasha did engage in stalking, harassment, and intimidating behavior toward them and others.
Like Capital Pride, Pasha following the April 29 hearing, filed his own proposed version of the stay away order with significantly less restrictions than the Capital Pride proposal. Among other things, it calls for him to restrict his contact with Capital Pride CEO Ryan Bos and Crenshaw but says it “does not by its terms restrict the defendant’s communications with any other person, entity, governmental body, or media outlet.”
“Darren Pasha sent multiple messages to us and to the court after the proceedings asking for further modifications — which we are not accepting or responding to,” Harrison told the Blade in response to a request for further comment on Judge’s request for each side to submit proposed revisions of the stay away order.
“We appreciate the court’s time and careful attention to the evidence presented today,” Harrison told the Washington Blade in a written statement after the hearing. “This process was about bringing forward the experiences of individuals who reported a pattern of conduct that caused fear, serious alarm, and emotional distress,” he said.
“Capital Pride Alliance remains committed to ensuring that our events and community spaces are safe, welcoming, and free from harassment and we will continue to take appropriate steps to support and protect our community,” his statement says.
“I am happy with what we have accomplished so far,” Pasha told the Blade after the hearing. “I’m just waiting to see what will happen next. But I want to reiterate this goes back to when someone treats you wrong you speak up,” he said. “Even if I lose this case, I am glad that I spoke up and raised concerns.”
He added, “I will just be confident that in the next couple of months the truth will come out. But for now, I am happy with the progress that we have made regarding this.”
This story will be updated when the judge issues his revised stay away order.
District of Columbia
U.S. Attorney’s Office fails to reinstate hate crime charge in anti-gay assault
The Office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C., which prosecutes criminal cases in the District, has decided not to reinstate a hate crime designation filed by D.C. police against a man arrested in February for allegedly assaulting a gay man while using “homophobic slurs.”
After prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office initially dropped the hate crime designation filed by police shortly after the alleged attacker was arrested on Feb. 7, a spokesperson for the office told the Washington Blade the case was still under investigation, and additional charges could be filed.
“We continue to investigate this matter and make no mistake: should the evidence call for further charges, we will not hesitate to charge them,” a statement released by the office in February said.
But D.C. Superior Court records show the case against defendant Dean Edmundson, 26, of Germantown, Md., who is now charged with Simple Assault without a hate crime designation, is scheduled to go to trial on Aug. 18.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office this week did not immediately respond to a message from the Blade asking why it chose not to reinstate the hate crime designation.
An affidavit in support of the arrest filed in court by D.C. police appears to support the charge of a hate crime designation. It says the incident occurred around 7:45 p.m. on Feb. 7 at the intersection of 14th and Q Streets, N.W., which is near two D.C. gay bars.
“The victim stated that they refused to High-Five Defendant Edmundson, which, upon that happening, Defendant Edmundson started walking behind both the victim and witness, calling the victim bald, ugly, and gay,” the arrest affidavit states.
“The victim stated that upon being called that, Defendant Edmundson pushed the victim with both hands, shoving them, causing the victim to feel the force of the push,” the affidavit says, adding, “The victim stated that they felt offended and that they were also gay.”
Under D.C.’s Bias Related Crimes Act of 1989, penalties for crimes motivated by prejudice and hate against individuals based on race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity disability, and homelessness can be enhanced by a judge upon conviction by one and a half times greater than the penalty of the underlying crime.
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