Baylor Sexual Assault Scandal

Baylor’s culture of discrimination in the form of improper response to sexual assault complaints was in place at Baylor years prior to the hiring of Art Briles and the subsequent success of the Baylor football team. It took the US Department of Education’s revamping of Title IX coupled with Baylor’s football success to bring the spotlight under which the discrimination could be fully revealed. The Houston Chronicle interviews victims as far back as 2004. In addition to some of the victim interviews, The Chronicle included this excerpt in their article:

High-profile sexual assault cases against two Baylor football players last year prompted the school to commission an outside investigation, which concluded that the university and its athletic department systematically failed students who were sexually assaulted during the period reviewed - 2012 through 2015. University administrators "directly discouraged complainants from reporting" the crimes, and actions by leadership suggested "football was above the rules." The school president, athletic director and head football coach lost their jobs as a result.

The Chronicle's findings reveal that Baylor's institutional failures with sexual assault victims go back more than a decade and extend well beyond the athletic department, as eight of the cases involved an assailant who wasn't an athlete.

Most of the women said they were questioned about their motives or behavior - several were asked about drinking alcohol and what they were wearing, perpetuating a "blame the victim" mentality. By policy, the Chronicle doesn't identify victims of sexual assault without their permission. Several of the victims would speak only with the promise of anonymity.

Without identifying the women, the Chronicle presented Baylor University with a summary of its findings, including specific anecdotes and accusations. School officials declined interview requests regarding the cases.

"Due to the deeply personal and sensitive nature of individual cases and federal law, we do not publicly address specific cases, even when a student publicly shares details or reports of his or her own experience," the university said in a statement to the Chronicle. "We respect survivors' freedom to choose whether, when and how to share their experiences."

The university responded to some broader questions via email and made one official available to discuss ongoing reform efforts. For example, the school recently named two executive-level task forces to implement changes to improve protocols, communication and training when dealing with sexual violence, said Patty Crawford, the university's Title IX coordinator.

"We know that if students don't feel comfortable in knowing how to report," she said, "we can't create remedies and create prevention programs, so it's really important."

New Baylor President David Garland says, “We are going to weather this storm.” In his first sit down news interview exclusively to talk about the scandal, Garland met with KWTX TV Channel 10’s Julie Hays.

Hays: Let’s talk about the Pepper Hamilton Report. How do you go about implementing the 105 recommendations of PH. Where do you even start or have you even started?

Garland: We've gotten more than just started on it. In 11 weeks, we have made incredible progress. Out of 105 recommendations, we've completed 76 that are ongoing and I'm amazed at the progress we've made.

We now have the biggest Title IX office of anyone in the Big 12. We have doubled the size of our counseling center, spent over 5 million dollars in increasing space and counselors and made a lot of revisions in policies and procedures so we've made incredible progress. We meet once a week to see how it's going and what still needs to be done.

Hays: Why do you think it took what happened for the university to say we have a lot of things we need to get in place?

Garland: I can't speculate on that all. All I know, is when I came in this is what I needed to do. To learn fast what went wrong, why it went wrong and to fix it fast. The findings of fact where extremely helpful and then the 105 recommendations gives us a road map of what we needed to do. That's what I'm tasked to do is to fix this problem so it doesn't happen again.

Sports Stuff

Today’s Baylor Athletic Events

SPORT: Women's Soccer

EVENT: vs Houston Baptist

TIME: 7:00 PM CT - Game Tracker

Camp BU

CBSDFW says that “so much looks familiar as the Bears get ready for a new season.”

“A key for us is for the kids to start making headlines for touchdowns and tackles, and not all the past stuff,” Baylor Head Coach Jim Grobe said.

“As far as X’s and O’s, things aren’t broken here,” Grobe said of the teamthat has led the nation in scoring and total offense each of the past three years.

Russell was the top-rated FBS passer when he suffered a season-ending neck injury in the seventh game last year. Russell was on a mission trip in Brazil with other Baylor athletes when he found out Briles would no longer be their coach, but the quarterback had no second thoughts about returning to the Bears when he found out Grobe’s plan to keep things the same on the field.

“Coach Grobe has done a really good job of showing his leadership and showing us the right way of doing things,” Russell said. “We’re trying to build the way people view Baylor back up.”

On “The Bear Blog” of the WacoTrib, John Werner says KD Cannon is expected to return to practice next week:

“KD could go right now, but there’s no reason for us to do that,” Grobe said. “The more time we give him the better he’s going to feel. He’s one of those guys you don’t have to find out if he can play.”

Cannon is expected to be Baylor’s top receiver after making 108 catches for 1,898 yards and 14 touchdowns in his first two seasons.

Cannon was a preseason all-Big 12 pick.

“He’s working out in the weight room right now,” Grobe said. “Coach Kaz (Kazadi) has got him doing a lot of stuff. I was really disappointed he hurt his knee. I thought he was having an exceptional summer. He looks great.”

Baylor Tennis

Baylor Volleyball

Baylor Browns and Baylor Jets

Former Baylor QB and now Jets QB Bryce Petty felt comfortable in pre-season win over the Jaguars. Newsday has the story.

There were a few errant and wobbly throws, but there also were bullet passes thrown with precision. Petty played the most of any Jets quarterback — 21 snaps compared with Smith’s 20 and Fitzpatrick’s 10 (rookie Hackenberg did not play). Petty’s longest throws (21, 20 and 19 yards to three different targets) were the longest completions behind Fitzpatrick’s 26- and 43-yarders to Quincy Enunwa.

“Every play call, I just knew what was going on and knew what was expected of me, so I just felt good about everything,” said Petty, the Jets’ fourth-round pick last year.

DBR FanPost Review

ckeaton3 gives us a FanPost titled Social Studies 101: Baylor Football. In this FanPost we read about how to make a Bear Claw and how to use it, Sailgating and the Baylor Line.

Before every football game, the Line, made up of the first year students wearing their gold jerseys, charge out of the tunnel before the football team and create a line for the players to run out of. Then, they take their place behind the opposing bench and make their presence known for the rest of the game.