Details have finally emerged from the series of sexual assaults involving the Baylor football team, and it predictably isn’t pretty.
In a series of interviews with the Wall Street Journal, Baylor regents tell the paper that the scandal involved 17 women who reported sexual or domestic assaults involving 19 players, including four gang rapes, since 2011.
Coach Art Briles was fired in May in the wake of the allegations, but very few details were revealed at the time. Baylor regents, who oversee the university, are now going public with the findings made by Philadelphia law firm Pepper Hamilton LLP. One regent told the paper the series of sexual assaults were “horrifying and painful.”
The revelations included at least one case in which Briles was aware of an alleged incident and not only didn’t tell the police but didn’t alert the school’s judicial affairs staff or the Title IX office in charge of coordinating the school’s response to sexual violence.
“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. “We did not have a caring community when it came to these women who reported that they were assaulted. And that is not OK.”
Briles’ lawyer, Ernest Cannon, told the paper his client never discouraged victims from filing claims against players, but couldn’t respond to the other claims because they didn’t have the details of the allegations. Briles has admitted in interviews he made “mistakes” and intends to return to coaching.
Two former Baylor football players have been convicted of sexual assault over the past four years. Another, Shawn Oakman, is under indictment, and has pleaded not guilty. The school is also facing lawsuits from more than a dozen former students alleging the school turned a blind eye to reports of sexual assault over many years. Baylor has yet to comment on those cases.
In one of the alleged gang rapes, the victim — a female athlete — told her coach she didn’t want to go to the police. Briles suggested to her coach to tell police, but he also didn’t tell the Baylor judicial affairs office or the Title IX office, those familiar with the situation said.