Baylor's Title IX Office Faced ‘uphill Battle' at Every Turn, Ex-employee Tells Feds

A second former Title IX employee at Baylor University has gone public with claims that the school blocked her attempts to thoroughly investigate sexual assault complaints, bolstering a prior allegation that Baylor set its Title IX office up to fail "from the beginning." Gabrielle Lyons, who worked as a Title IX investigator for seven months in 2015, said Baylor failed to implement Title IX -- the federal law that calls for gender equity in education and requires universities to promptly respond to sexual violence on campus -- during her time there, creating a discriminatory and hostile environment for female employees and students. "Everything I had to do as a Title IX investigator, I faced an uphill battle," Lyons, 30, said in an interview Thursday.Lyon's allegations, first reported by ESPN's Outside the Lines, echoed concerns outlined by her former boss Patty Crawford, who served as Baylor's first Title IX coordinator from 2014 to 2016. Crawford resigned in October and filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, which opened an investigation into whether Baylor violated Title IX.   Continue reading...