Last week, Baylor received another series of blows with the resignation of Title IX Director Patty Crawford, the reinstatement of Jeremy Faulk's scholarship and a Twitter confrontation between the Baylor football coaching staff and the Baylor administration. Once again, it leaves me about six different kinds of sad for Baylor. It makes me wonder what is really going on at Baylor, but at the same time, I am highly encouraged by an angry group of alums.
I will start by admitting where I was badly wrong. Earlier I had praised the Board of Regents for hiring the Pepper Hamilton law firm to find out what went wrong with the sexual assault scandal, particularly as it related to the football program. I wrongfully assumed that the BOR had Baylor's best interest at heart, and that it was interested in finding out the truth. I believe I was sorely mistaken on those counts. What I believe has happened is that Baylor's BOR wanted nothing more than cover for what they wanted to do.
As part of Patty Crawford's resignation, she mentioned that was filing a complaint with the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights division against COO Reagan Ramsower. I assume that she, along with her attorney will follow through on this. And this is where my questions about the Pepper Hamilton "report" begin.
First, Ramsower was the highest ranking administrator at Baylor who came through this unscathed. Yet the Title IX Director reported to him. So, the Title IX office was under his perview. This scandal occurred under his nose, and on his watch. How the hell did he come out unscathed? How did Pepper Hamilton deflect all blame away from the very man who was responsible for all this?
To go a bit deeper, did Ramsower keep the BOR fully informed of the division's activities? Did he keep President Starr fully informed of the division's activities? The other way of looking at this question: Was the BOR interested in protecting Ramsower? Why were they so interested in protecting him? Ramsower is now at the center of the storm, and the man that the BOR and Pepper Hamilton seemed so interested in protecting is now under federal investigation thanks to Ms. Crawford's actions. Pay particular attention to this investigation. The DOE isn't being paid by Baylor, and they have no interest in protecting the Baylor brand. They could blow the lid off Baylor.
Was Pepper Hamilton actually charged with finding the truth - or just finding the truth as seen through the eyes of the BOR? Which meant protecting their little "patsy" in the administration. How many of Pepper Hamilton's 105 recommendations actually focused on Ramsower himself or the BOR? It sure looks like the people who hired this law firm, and paid them, were strangely absolved of a lot of blame.
Now I will say that I still believe that the firing of Art Briles was justified. I do not believe he held his players accountable for their behavior. I believe him to be a very good and decent man who made a colossal error in judgment. His lack of action regarding his players has left many lives torn and traumatized for years. And as he said on ESPN, he was the captain of the ship, and the captain goes down with the ship. So to those alums that want to bring Briles back...forget about it!
At the same time, as Ms. Crawford said, football is actually a very small part of this scandal, and the administration wants to whitewash it and pretend that it will go away. It will not just go away. The BOR and the administration needs to own up to its own failings. And they now need to own up to the failings of the Pepper Hamilton recommendations, and they need to explain all this in very explicit detail. Of course, they also need to protect privacy, but I do believe that the BOR and the administration can be far more forthcoming while protecting the identity of the victims.
Thanks to the BOR's and/or Dr. Ramsower's inattention to this matter, Baylor will face astronomical legal costs. So far, eight women have come forward to sue the university. The BOR and administration's response has been harsh and has been to make it as difficult as possible for the victims, which only insult to their injury. I expect many more women to come forward as this scandal continues to get uglier.
I do want to conclude by saying that Baylor has so many good things going for it. First and foremost, many administrators, faculty and staff are truly great people. I cannot stress this enough. So many of the students are terrific people too. There are thousands of young students on campus who are eager to learn and to make a positive difference in the world. The facilities and amenities are first class all the way. And a young student can truly receive a first rate education at this terrific institution. Baylor also possesses a fiercely loyal alumni base who truly love this university. And right now, many of these alums are angry at the BOR and the administration. And justifiably so. It is this group that is loudly demanding the truth about what happened.
I am also a Baylor alum who fiercely loves this university. And I want the truth to come out. I want the victims to receive their justice from Baylor. They deserve it. The more I hear coming out of Baylor, the more I believe Patty Crawford's perspective on the shenanigans going on at Baylor. And that saddens me. It saddens me that this group of Regents and a select group of administrators have pulled the biggest breach of fiduciary duty in the history of the university. It is time to revolt against those who put Baylor in its current mess.
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