Baylor suspended offensive lineman Rami Hammad on Tuesday following a Monday arrest for felony stalking, but ESPN’s Outside the Lines reported Thursday he played the entire 2015 season despite two women coming forward to Baylor’s Title IX office with complaints of inappropriate sexual contact.
According to an unnamed Baylor student, she met Hammad last September following a chapel service, and the pair met up a few days later -- where, she alleges, Hammad took her to his apartment and sexually assaulted her in his bedroom. An acquaintance informed the woman of a similar story regarding Hammad, which led to a report with the school’s Title IX office.
From the OTL report:
The woman who filed the report said Hammad soon began texting and calling her during a class to find out if she had reported him to the school. Later that day, while walking back to her dorm, she said she heard a car horn honking and saw Hammad get out of his car and run toward her, asking her about a notice from the Title IX office.
She said she and her acquaintance then filed for no-contact orders through Baylor’s Title IX office. The woman’s order, reviewed by Outside the Lines, was issued Sept. 30, 2015.
On Oct. 2, 2015, the woman was sitting outside Baylor’s student union and talking on the phone when she looked up and saw Hammad in front of her, she told Outside the Lines. “I knew he was very aware there was a no-contact order. He said, ‘You know it was consensual.’” She said she didn’t respond and tried to get up as Hammad started yelling at her.
Two male students behind her noticed and stood up, at which point he walked away. She said she called Baylor police, who interviewed the two witnesses. An officer told her that she could press charges. “I said: ‘No, this is not what college is supposed to be. I don’t want to press charges,’” she said. “I just thought Title IX would take care of it.”
The woman said there was no evidence Hammad was ever punished by the football program -- the Irving, Texas, native played in all 13 games last season -- or the university. While she, meanwhile, said said the Title IX office instructed her to alter her routes or receive prior approval to navigate campus in order to avoid Hammad. That complaint follows a similar string where a number of Baylor women have alleged the university told them to change their behavior to avoid Baylor football players, instead of the other way around.
Interim head coach Jim Grobe said last month at Big 12 media days of Baylor’s current roster, which included Hammad at the time, “We don’t have a culture of bad behavior at Baylor University. The problems that we’re dealing with at Baylor and have dealt with at Baylor, to this point, are problems that are probably at every university in the country.”
Hammad was suspended from the team this week after violating multiple requests from Waco police to avoid contact with an ex-girlfriend. The woman said Hammad waited for her outside a class and, after she requested the professor of said class escort her to the professor’s office, Hammad followed the pair and knocked on the professor’s office door multiple times.