The investigation stemmed from an incident on the night of Nov. 11, 2017, which was listed in Baylor’s online crime log as “Alcohol-Minors Consuming/Sexual Assault,” and it reportedly involved two women who were members of the school’s equestrian team. A statement from McLennan District Attorney Abel Reyna said that the grand jury had determined there was not enough evidence to pursue charges against Arthur and Lewis. According to the statement, the evidence reviewed included Baylor’s Title IX Investigations, police reports, witness statements, and victim interviews.
https://collegefootball.ap.org/article/texas-court-reinstates-baylor-sex-assault-conviction
Texas’ highest criminal appeals court on Wednesday reinstated the 2015 sexual assault conviction of a former Baylor University football player whose case ignited a scandal that engulfed the nation’s largest Baptist school.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said a lower court erred by overturning the conviction of Sam Ukwuachu based on text messages between the victim and a friend that had not been allowed in trial.
The trial court only allowed into evidence texts the woman sent after the assault, in which she told a friend she had been raped. Ukwuachu’s attorney argued earlier text messages exchanged between the woman and her friend would show the woman consented to sex.
Wednesday’s filing includes notes McCaw took at a board meeting in February 2016, several months into Pepper Hamilton’s investigation. He wrote that regent Mark McCollum was skeptical of extra money the board approved for the Baylor counseling center, a plan the university promoted after the meeting as part of an “action plan to address sexual violence.”
McCollum called sexual assaults “a spiritual problem” and said they should be addressed through church services and a nonprofit program for Christian athletes. These comments drew applause from the board, McCaw wrote.
“(McCollum) described it as building a bigger Band-Aid and mentioned that telling a prospective parent that when their daughter is raped at Baylor, we will provide excellent counseling services” is not the right message, McCaw wrote.
A source with knowledge of the discussion said McCollum was trying to convey that Baylor should take preventive steps to eliminate sexual assaults.
McCaw also testified that Richard Willis, the board chairman prior to June 2016, was pivotal to Baylor’s strategy of reshaping the investigation. According to the motion, McCaw said Willis uninvited regent Jay Allison, who is not related to current board chairman Joel Allison, from a Philadelphia meeting at the offices of Pepper Hamilton before the firm’s presentation to the full board. Willis did this because Allison would “not agree with the direction that they needed to go in terms of how the preparation was going to be shaped.”
Jay Allison was chair of the board’s athletics committee that was dismantled in a series of leadership model reforms regents made amid calls for transparency from donors, faculty and alumni.
At the September 2017 football game between Baylor and Liberty, McCaw said Allison played him a recording of Willis revoking his invitation to the meeting in Philadelphia.
McCaw described his feelings about the call: “And I think they felt like they could get the media off their back if they focused the attention on football players, took some decisive action, and that the media would not keep digging and find out the scope of the scandal.”
Uncle Drayton ponying up the money…keeping everything quiet…The Baylor Way
It is the fifth Title IX lawsuit Baylor has settled. The only remaining suits filed by alleged sexual assault victims are led by Waco attorney Jim Dunnam and Houston attorney Chad Dunn. They represent 15 former students.
“Baylor University understands that survivors of sexual and interpersonal violence seek resolution in many ways,” according to a university statement. “In reaching a legal settlement, we acknowledge the challenges this survivor has endured and realize it’s a small step in the healing process.
“Under new leadership, Baylor has taken significant actions in response to past reports of sexual violence within our campus community and implemented 105 improvements to our Title IX policy, processes and procedures. We remain steadfast in our commitment to properly respond to incidents of sexual assault, interpersonal violence and harassment.”
Boot 'em
The source, who did not wish to be identified due to the sensitive nature of the proceedings, told CBS Sports that the still-ongoing legal issues threaten to make the Baylor scandal the “biggest in higher education.”
“I was worried about [Big 12] membership,” the source said.
Baylor is such a craphole
“If we had had (Title IX coordinator) Patty Crawford (who was hired in November ‘14) in place, this all would have been out of our hands and they would have handled it. Art would have survived. We all would have survived. I go back to Sam’s deal; the sensationalism and the lies that he played. He never played. He never set foot in the weight room or the locker room. I’ve said this from the get-go: This was a systematic problem. Baylor never wanted Title IX in the first place.”
Patrick i love how you are always so fact oriented and non-partisan, unless you’re talking about baylor. It makes it so much the better to read your comments on this whole fiasco.
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I try, but Baylor’s just a whole ‘nother level of Sleaze. Worst part is how they position themselves as a Christian University first, but it’s all a front.
The rest of the conference should be embarrassed by them and should have kicked them out long ago. Guessing money is the reason they haven’t.
I honestly hope the Big12 falls apart just so Baylor falls all the way down to CUSA.
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McCaw listed the following leaders as “bad actors”: former regents Neal “Buddy” Jones, Dary Stone, Richard Willis, Ron Murff and David Harper, and current regent J. Cary Gray. Willis, Murff and Harper recently cycled off of the board.
I think the best part is the ‘welcoming and diverse community found on our campus’ line.
There’s white southern baptists, white missionary baptists, some white methodists, some white episcopalians. A handful of white church of christ. Two white catholics. Diversity aplenty.
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Pitman on Tuesday agreed to allow Dolores Lozano, a former Baylor student, to file a new Title IX complaint alleging the university failed to respond when she accused a football player of physical abuse.
She had made similar allegations in a October 2016 suit, but last September, Pitman dismissed most of those claims, which involved negligence and gross negligence. He had signaled at the time that she could file other non-Title IX complaints regarding the school’s hiring, training, retention and supervision practices. But with the backing of new attorneys, Lozano persuaded Pitman to allow a new lawsuit alleging Title IX failures by Baylor and negligence of Baylor, Briles and McCaw in the handling of the case.
The new policies, which sources said are all the Big 12 cares about, are not the issue. The issue is who really was at fault in this fiasco and whether there was a deliberate attempt to deny, suppress or ignore claims of rape at the school.
The last, maybe best, chance for the truth to be exposed about what happened at Baylor was always going to be in the courtroom.
“Other universities have been able to move forward by telling the whole truth and then taking steps to make sure something like this could never happen again,” said John Eddie Williams, a Houston lawyer and the main donor for Baylor’s football field and law school library. “All the facts will be revealed in litigation. Our (Bears for Leadership Reform) leadership is deeply disturbed that the Baylor family has a lot of questions. None of them have been answered.”
Guelfi Firenze American Football team, located in Florence, Italy, has hired Briles to coach its adult league team beginning in the fall. The move will be announced later today.
“At least five key Baylor senior non-athletic administrators were aware of Elliott’s predatorial behavior in the fall of 2011,” attorneys Chad Dunn of Houston and Jim Dunnam of Waco wrote in the motion. “They did nothing, with horrific consequences over the next five months.”
When these groups organized on campus to comfort each other and demand action from former chancellor Kenneth Starr, “[Burchett] would coordinate with them, befriend them, and pretend he was helping them organize vigils and demonstrations [about] sexual assault,” the source added.
Burchett would pass on what he learned to school officials, the communications department, and Ketchum, the source added. In an email described to PRWeek, Kevin Jackson, VP of student life and Burchett’s supervisor, said the director of student activities was “adept at this kind of thing.”