WNBA All-Star Layshia Clarendon sues Cal, says she was sexually assaulted as a student-athlete

Jason Owens
·Staff writer
·2 min read
Layshia Clarendon has accused a Cal athletic department employee of sexual assault. (AP)
Layshia Clarendon has accused a Cal athletic department employee of sexual assault. (AP)
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WNBA All-Star Layshia Clarendon has sued the regents of the University of California claiming that she was sexually assaulted by athletic department employee Mohamed Muqtar while she was a student-athlete in Berkeley, ESPN reports.

Muqtar, 61, is an assistant athletic director for student services who has worked at Cal’s athletic department for more than 25 years. He is also named as a defendant.

Clarendon attended Cal from 2009 to 2013. She alleged that Muqtar, who frequently spends time with and buys dinner for student-athletes, invited her back to his apartment during her freshman year and sexually assaulted her while she was in his bathroom, according to the report. She was 18 at the time of the allegation.

Clarendon responded to the news on Twitter.

ESPN reached out to Cal and Muqtar for its story. Cal intends to release a statement, while Muqtar declined their request.

The report details that another former student-athlete at Cal has accused Muqtar of frequent inappropriate behavior while she was in school. That student-athlete is not named and graduated in 2006.

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A former Cal instructor who also wished to remain anonymous spoke with ESPN about multiple student-athletes confiding in her about inappropriate behavior by Muqtar. The instructor told athletic department officials, but was told that they couldn’t do anything about the allegations without more details from the accusers, according to the report.

Clarendon said on Twitter that her primary goal with the lawsuit is to prevent Muqtar from hurting others.

“My biggest hope is that he never does this to anyone else,” Clarendon wrote. “That no one else has to suffer under his hand, or him violating their bodies again. That this would be the end of him assaulting people.”

A 2013 first-round pick in the WNBA, Clarendon made her first All-Star team in 2017 with the Atlanta Dream. She led the Golden Bears to the Final Four as a senior in 2013.