Baylor probe found football ‘above the rules’
provide timely counseling, didn’t push for charges or additional protections for the victims, and failed to offer support to manage day-to-day college life.
Five of the Baylor victims, along with their family and friends, shared similar experiences in interviews with the Chronicle. One is already suing the university; two others are planning litigation.
“I was treated like I committed the crime ,” said a woman who was 20 when she says she was attacked in 2013. She has hired an attorney. “No one ever made it clear to me what my rights were, or if I had any.”
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 whowere 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 attacker 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. Bypolicy, 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 an- ecdotes 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.
“Weknowthat 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.”
SUFFERING ALONE: ‘No one really cared’
Several of the former students described bouts of depression and anxiety in the weeks and months after their assaults. One student attempted suicide, and another was hospitalized for anxiety, according to court filings. One former student said she developed an eating disorder.
In a lawsuit filed in June, a woman says she was raped her freshman year in 2005 and reported the attack to various Baylor campus departments, including an assistant dean. As her grades began to slip, the assistant dean advised her to “withdraw from the university,” she said in court papers.
“No one ever made it clear to me what my rights were, or if I had any.” a former Baylor student who says she was sexually assaulted in 2013
“I felt so stupid, so worthless,” the former student said in an interview. “I found out the hard way that no one really cared what happened to me. That changes the way you look at everything. What was the point of doing anything? … I didn’t know who else to turn to.”
Federal Title IX rules require schools to provide academic support and services. They also mandate protections and corrective action for womenwho experience sexual harassment, violence or coercion on campus.
According to lawsuits, several Baylor victims said they asked for academic assistance ranging from extra time to complete assignments to postponement of tests. Only one student says she was allowed to retake a test.
Such testimonials compound the crushing revelations for Baylor, long celebrated for its Christian values, principles and outreach to help others. “We acknowledge our failures in the past and take responsibility,” the school said in an email to the Chronicle.
Even though years have passed for some victims, they still fear the stigma often associated with rape, particularly after they say Baylor officials and employees greeted them with questions and doubts.
“I still worry what people think, my family thinks,” said a woman who was a senior in April 2014 when she says she was assaulted. “I worry that people won’t believe me, that they will say I am lying about it.”
Crawford says she has spent the past year training various university offices on how to make sure students know their rights and get access to services. Before then, Baylor didn’t have a Title IX office. It opened in November 2014. SEEKING COUNSELING: ‘I was just more confused and hurt’
Baylor University’s website says walk-ins are welcome for counseling services on the second floor of the McLane Student Life Center. The center has “counselors available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for Baylor students.”
A mother of one of the Baylor students called the center two days after her daughter was attacked in April 2012, according to a lawsuit. The mother told the center that her daughter “had just been raped” and she was seeking services “to help mitigate the effects of such a traumatic event.”
The counseling center informed her that it was “too busy” to take another appointment, according to the complaint.
According to another lawsuit, a third-year Baylor student said she reached out to the counseling center in June 2014, one weekafter she was raped. She said she had “multiple interactions” with the center and was never informed that she had the right to pursue criminal and Title IX investigations of her attack.
“The lack of knowledgeable staff … has severely impaired her physical and mental health,” her lawsuit states.
The former student who was raped in March 2012 recalled how the counselor seemed kind when she visited just two days after she was attacked. She said the counselor told her that the meeting was an assessment and that she would schedule an appointment for a counseling session.
During the review, the counselor didn’t ask for the identity of the woman’s attacker, according to the victim. She didn’t ask her if she called the police, nor did she ask if someone was watching over her or if she felt she was still in danger.
The counselor, the former student said, gave her a few pamphlets — one on surviving sexual assault, one on how alcohol can affect judgment, one with a list of phone numbers and websites for other Baylor campus resources, like academic affairs.
“WhenI got up and went there that morning, I did believe I was doing the right thing by trying to get help,” the woman recalled. “When I left … I was just more confused and hurt.”
In any case involving a possible sexual assault, counseling and medical services should be made available promptly, as should any other assistance to ensure that a victim feels safe, said Neena Chaudhry, director of education and senior counsel for the National Women’s Law Center The school has to make sure there is no harassment or ongoing retaliation,” she said. “That’s a real concern.”
Of the cases reviewed by the Chronicle, nine of the students sought help from the university’s health center, including counseling services. Most of the women struggled to get into sessions. One woman said she had to wait three weeks for her first appointment.
Four of the women eventually went to counseling, only to discover that the number of free sessions was limited. The woman whowas raped in 2004 says in her lawsuit said that after exhausting her allotted sessions, she was told “she would have to seek treatment elsewhere.” GOING TO THE POLICE: ‘It felt like he didn’t believe me’
The Baylor junior recalled how her mother was crying through the phone, trying to stifle her emotions to offer advice.
The student had just described how she was raped less than a week earlier. She was at a house party off campus in September 2013, and things went too far, and she couldn’t stop it. Since then, she hadn’t been able to eat or sleep.
“My mom told me she would come as soon as she could,” the woman said in an interview. “She told me to go report it to the police and that she would help me with everything when she got there.”
The Baylor Police Department told her to come in and give a statement. After listening to her describe the attack, she said a police officer asked a variety of questions about how much she drank, whether she was in a relationship with her attacker, and whether she was sure he knew it wasn’t consensual.
She told himshe had a couple of beers. She said they had hung out a few times. She told him she never consented. Yes, she was sure.
“It felt like he didn’t believe me,” she said. “It felt like he was judging me; I started to worry about what I was doing.”
The police officer told her she didn’t need to decide right then if she wanted to press charges — she should think about it. “He told me, ‘ Situations like this are tough. There’s a lot of he-said, she-said involved, and it can be tricky,’ ” she recalled.
The line of questioning was deeply “troublesome,” Chaudhry said, because it suggests a lack of training on how to properly interview a victim. For example, “Are you concerned for your safety?” was an obvious question that should have been asked, she said.
In lawsuits, two former students said they never heard from campus police after initiating a report, and another former student said the police “refused to take” one
University employees, including campus police, should never discourage a student from filing a report, according to a report by the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, released in 2014. Schools are responsible for providing “a safe learning environment for all students” and helping survivors “reclaim their educations,” the report concluded.
Crawford, Baylor’s Title IX coordinator, said campus police have been instructed to take a report whenever there’s an indication of an assault and forward it as a potential Title IX violation. She said she couldn’t say what the policy was prior to 2015.
Baylor police records are not public. The department did not respond to numerous requests for comment about these specific cases or its protocols on handling sexual assault reports. SEEING MY ATTACKER: ‘It was too much to handle’
He was walking just ahead, maybe 20 steps away, as she stepped outside after a science class in January 2005. Her throat began to burn, and she gasped for air as she turned back into the building and rushed to the nearest bathroom.
She slammed a stall door shut and crouched over the toilet to throw up.
Four months had passed since he attacked her at a fraternity party — the first one she had ever gone to. The 18-year-old freshman couldn’t chance seeing him again. She stayed in the bathroom another 45 minutes.
She had tried to get help, according to her lawsuit against Baylor. She said she reported the attack to campus police. She answered several questions, then went home and never heard back from anyone. In court papers, the former student said she would see her attacker once a week. She struggled academically and emotionally for years.
“I lost a lot of weight. I barely spoke to my friends anymore,” she said in an interview. “It was a really tough time.”
According to the lawsuits, three students went directly to the Baylor Police Department and two went to the university president’s office to report sexual assaults. Others told their professors, the Baylor Judicial Affairs office, a dorm chaplain, the university vice provost, the Baylor Advocacy Center, two athletic department officials and the Title IX Office.
In each case, the former student said she was given little direction or offered vague promises that something would be done. Most of the women said they later saw their assailant around campus in the weeks and months that followed. Four women said the university did nothing to prevent such encounters, according to court records.
“When victims see their attackers every day, it can cause a number of issues, from physical to mental health problems,” Chaudhry said. “That’s why it’s important to make accommodations, like class schedule changes to ensure the victim feels safe.”
When a victim has made a sexual assault complaint, the school should be certain that he or she is aware of all available resources, such as victim advocacy, housing assistance, academic support and legal assistance, according to the Department of Education. A school’s inaction may subject the student to a hostile environment, federal guidelines state.
In the case of the Baylor freshman, she decided to try to forget about the attack. She had academic scholarships to worry about. But she struggled to go to class. Her grades were dropping.
“It was too much to handle,” she said in an interview.
She would go on to fail three classes that semester and be placed on academic probation. By the end of the school year, she had dropped out of Baylor and moved home. MOVING ON: ‘It’s taken a lot’
The English major who couldn’t get out of bed in 2012 would later graduate from Baylor University. She is engaged and teaching at an elementary school in Houston.
One morning in late May, tough memories came flooding back while she was sitting in her dentist’s office.
Social media and news outlets were abuzz about Baylor. The university had released the findings of the outside investigation it commissioned regarding sexual assaults on campus. Pepper Hamilton, the law firm that carried out the review, cited a culture of denial about sexual violence throughout the administration.
There it was. Proof. It wasn’t just her. She wasn’t wrong to feel alone, betrayed. She doesn’t remember much about the cavity filling that day.
“I was numb,” she said. “I wasn’t sure how to feel about any of it.”
Several victims said the headlines were a validation, but the news brought back difficult feelings about a school that they felt betrayed them.
“I still think about it every day,” said the woman who was a senior in 2014 when she was attacked. “It’s taken a lot for me to move on, get a job, have a life.”
Of the cases reviewed by the Chronicle, four women went on to graduate from Baylor, and one is still enrolled there. The others either dropped out of college or transferred. Several have found each other over the years, creating an informal support group. They have conversations via text and social media.
“Having solidarity helps,” said a Baylor graduate who says she was raped in 2015. “Being able to at have2 a.m. somethingand being weighingable to messageon you .“someone who feels the same way provides comfort.”
Baylor vows that it is working to change how it treats sexual assault victims, noting. that the size of the university’s Title IX staff has been tripled. Interim President David. E. Garland says the 105 reform recommendations by Pepper Hamilton are now mandates.
“It’s something,” said the womannowteaching in Houston. “But it’s not enough, really. It’s not enough to take away the past.”
Some of the victims expressed guarded optimism as Baylor moves forward, but they wonder if the institutional culture toward sexual assault will really change.
“The thing is, I went to Baylor for a few pretty specific reasons, the big one being that it was rooted in Christian faith and that’s important to me,” said the woman whowasassaulted her senior year in 2014. “Nothing about my experience reflected that.”