Baylor’s ongoing scandal involving sexual assaults at the school took yet another turn for the worse on Friday.
In a report from The Wall Street Journal, school regents told the paper that 17 women reported sexual or domestic assaults in alleged incidents involving 19 football players since 2011. The regents, which went on the record to discuss some of the detailed findings from law firm Pepper Hamilton’s in-depth report into the matter for the first time, also said there were four alleged gang rapes involving players in the same time frame.
Former head coach Art Briles was fired by the school as the result of the Pepper Hamilton investigation but has maintained that while he made mistakes, he tried to do the best he could in his position. However the WSJ report disputes that notion by saying that Briles did not notify police, the school’s judicial affairs or Title IX offices of at least one alleged gang rape involving another Bears athlete after being notified of the allegation.
“There was a cultural issue there that was putting winning football games above everything else, including our values,” said J. Cary Gray, a lawyer and member of the Baylor board of regents. “(Briles) said, ‘I delegated down, and I know I shouldn’t have. And I had a system where I was the last to know, and I should have been the first to know.’”
Briles’ lawyer told the paper that the comments appeared to violate a non-disparagement section of the school’s termination agreement with the coach. Briles, athletic director Ian McCaw and university president Ken Starr all resigned or were fired over the summer as the result of their handling of the matter.
With numerous lawsuits already filled and plenty more likely to come up, it figures to be some time before Baylor can move on and put this scandal behind them. On the field, the Bears travel to face Texas on Saturday after starting this season 6-0 under interim head coach Jim Grobe.