BRILES OUT AT BAYLOR
Safety of women on campus should never be compromised by athletics
Baylor football case should prompt the end of acceptance of sexual violence
The abuse, the humiliation, the abandonment, the complete and utter lack of human decency with which victims of sexual assault are treated, it has to stop.
Let this horror at Baylor be it. Please.
The condemnation of the crimes that were allowed to go on at Baylor — with interference being run by the football staff, athletics department and university higher-ups, no less — was swift and deafening Thursday. As well it should have been, given the disturbing details in the board of regents’ summary of an independent investigation into how Baylor handled sexual violence.
Sexual assault victims were ignored or encouraged to drop their complaints. Football staffers took it upon themselves to play investigator regarding allegations against players, even going so far as to meet with the woman who made the complaint. The campus was shrouded in a culture of secrecy and shame that made women who were brutalized feel marginalized and alone.
But for as egregious as Baylor’s handling of sexual assault allegations were — “I’d seen other girls go through it, and nothing ever happened to the football players,” one woman told ESPN’s Outside the Lines — that calculated disregard is hardly unique. Be it
Tennessee, Notre Dame, Florida State or Oregon, schools throughout the country are routinely accused of protecting athletes at the expense of female students’ physical safety.
“It’s hard for schools to do the right thing … because that reputation (in athletics) is valuable to the school in an economic sense,” said Erin Buzuvis, a law professor at Western New England University and co-founder of the Title IX Blog.
In other words, the dignity and self-worth of our friends, sisters, daughters and granddaughters are being sold out for a handful of wins and a spot in the Unfortunately-Named-and-LightlyAttended Bowl.
“Baylor failed to take appropriate action to respond to reports of sexual assault and dating violence reportedly committed by football players,” the board of regents’ summary said. “The choices made by football staff and athletics leadership, in some instances, posed a risk to campus safety and the integrity of the university.”
The challenge now is not finding a Baylor coach who can duplicate Art Briles’ winning ways or whether fans will still fill the school’s shining new shrine to football. It’s putting an end, once and for all, to the marginalization of women. It’s making sure everyone — from athletes on up to the university president — recognizes and accepts that rape culture has no place on campus. On any college campus. Whenever there’s a systemic failure like this, the public expresses its shock, wonders how coaches and university administrators can sleep at night and insists something has to change. Then everyone moves on. Until it happens again. Repugnant as it is, the Baylor report also should serve as the benchmark against which all schools measure themselves. It should be required reading for university presidents, athletics directors, head coaches — anyone and everyone who can bring about the change in attitudes and behavior that has to occur.
As important as athletics are to colleges, they are not a license for sexual violence. So rather than the Baylor report being the start of change at that school, let it be the end at every school.
The end of schools prizing bigtime athletics more than the physical safety of young women. The end of schools covering up, ignoring or excusing the crimes of their athletes. The end of players, coaches and athletics department officials thinking there’s a special set of rules for them.
Sexual violence on campus has been tolerated for far too long. Let Baylor be where it ends.