Baylor University is now facing a federal investigation, and along with our news partners at The Dallas Morning News, NBC 5 sat down with four members of the school's Board of Regents Thursday to get answers.
The sexual assaults scandal rocked the Waco campus over the summer, leading to the firing of its president, Ken Starr, and head football coach, Art Briles.
Both publicly denied any knowledge of sexual assaults or cover up involving assaults on campus. But now, Baylor University regents say the former coach knew of at least one allegation of gang rape and never reported it. Instead, regents claim that Briles simply said "go to the police about it" and never told administrators.
They also say the former coach didn't defend himself when questioned about it. The university previously hired a private firm to conduct an investigation into allegations that sexual assault claims weren't investigated or reported properly.The Pepper Hamilton report has never been released, but it was used as a basis for firing several members of the athletic department, including Briles, as well as Starr, who later stepped down as chancellor and resigned his post as a law school professor.
But a Baylor source says they are taking several recommendations from that report, including an extensive review of 125 cases ranging from harassment all the way up to sexual assault over a five-year period.
Just last week the Wall Street Journal reported that 17 women reported incidents of sexual or domestic assault involving 19 football players, including four gang rapes since 2011. Keep in mind, that's over the course of Briles's entire tenure as coach at Baylor. That is something he claims he knew nothing about, but he recently apologized, saying he made some mistakes and "the captain of the ship goes down with it."
A general council will be looking at how those cases were handled and will even speak with victims. Last month, the school's Title IX coordinator, Patti Crawford, quit and filed a lawsuit against the school. She also filed a complaint with the Department of Education, which sparked the federal investigation. And it's only now, after Crawford's lawsuit and the federal investigation that's underway, that regents are talking about what really happened.
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The Board of Regents present at Thursday's meeting were Ronald D. Murff, president, JKL Group, Dallas; David H. Harper, partner, Haynes and Boone, LLP, Dallas; James Cary Gray, president and managing director, Gray, Reed & McCraw P.C., Houston; and the Rev. Dennis R. Wiles, pastor, First Baptist Church, Arlington.
