The ugly sexual assault scandal at Baylor continues to get uglier as information leaks out of multiple lawsuits against the school with each passing month.
The latest bombshell came on Thursday as the Waco Tribune says emails filed in a lawsuit show that those in charge of the Bears not only knew about allegations against a linebacker on the team, but held off on punishing him long enough for him to allegedly rape another student. Per the report:Top Baylor University administrators discussed sexual assault allegations against Tevin Elliott and put potential disciplinary action on hold months before the then-football player raped another student, according to emails and other documents filed Thursday in a Title IX lawsuit against the school.
Art Briles, the former head football coach fired in May 2016 during the school’s sexual assault scandal, handed over the documents late last month in response to a subpoena from lawyers representing 10 women suing the school.
Emails included in a filing Thursday reveal administrators with oversight of student conduct discussing allegations against Elliott in October 2011, shortly before he raped a then-Baylor student in April 2012. Elliott is serving a 20-year prison sentence after being convicted of sexual assault in the case in January 2014.
A separate lawsuit has accused that some 31 Baylor football players committed an alleged 52 acts of rape or sexual assault starting in 2011 and lasting for at least four years. One of those 31 is presumably Elliott, who is one of a growing number of ex-players to be convicted for sexual assault. One of the women he raped, Jasmin Hernandez, later went public with her story and reached a settlement with the university in 2017.
The emails that show Baylor knew of such allegations against Elliott but failed to act also backs up reporting from ESPN’s Outside the Lines from 2016 that show the school took more than two years to investigate a separate claim against two other football players. The plaintiffs’ attorneys in the most recent lawsuit also said that it’s quite notable that it took a subpoena to Briles, who was fired as football coach in 2016, in order to produce the emails. A deposition by the lawyers involving ex-athletic director Ian McCaw has already made waves after he alleged the Baylor Police Department ignored several reports of rape by football players and that some at the university have tried to scapegoat the athletic department.
It remains to be seen what kind of impact this will all have on Baylor’s on-going NCAA investigation into the scandal but needless to say it certainly doesn’t help with that or with regards to public opinion. Recent changes in the infractions process that have stemmed from the Rice Commission in basketball have given the NCAA much more flexibility in using court documents so a lot of these emails and lawsuits against the school could be playing a role in the program reportedly discussing a one-year bowl ban for the team in 2018.
Either way, the slow drip of damning information about what went on in Waco several years ago does not appear as though it will slow down anytime soon.