Football and Title IX Bring Baylor to its Knees

[Fido]

I'm sure the posts were TIC, as not even Obama's education directive regarding transgendered people requires mixing men/women locker rooms broadly.
But this is why Baylor is in such trouble with their situation. http://knowyourix.org/title-ix/title-ix-in-detail/
While Title IX is a very short statute, Supreme Court decisions and guidance from the U.S. Department of Education have given it a broad scope covering sexual harassment and sexual violence. Under Title IX, schools are legally required to respond and remedy hostile educational environments and failure to do so is a violation that means a school could risk losing its federal funding.

[snoscythe]

I'm sure the posts were TIC, as not even Obama's education directive regarding transgendered people requires mixing men/women locker rooms broadly.
But this is why Baylor is in such trouble with their situation. http://knowyourix.org/title-ix/title-ix-in-detail/
While Title IX is a very short statute, Supreme Court decisions and guidance from the U.S. Department of Education have given it a broad scope covering sexual harassment and sexual violence. Under Title IX, schools are legally required to respond and remedy hostile educational environments and failure to do so is a violation that means a school could risk losing its federal funding.

And this is the issue with BYU--the event that spurred BYU's self-investigation into its Title IX policies was a Utah County deputy handing an investigatory file over to the Honor Code Office in an attempt to hold BYU football players accountable in connection with a rape case. For what, we don't know, but he obviously felt he wasn't getting anywhere within the Sheriff's office or the athletic department, or else why go over Bronco's/Sitake's/Holmoe's head and take it to the independent Honor Code office? Baylor started by looking at the same issue--something wasn't jiving at the Title IX office and some media reports of a few sexual assaults, and when one of them got national attention, they brought in the Philly law firm to truly assess what was going on.

To claim that what is happening at Baylor can't happen here is jumping the gun--BYU is starting the same investigation that Baylor started six months ago. We have a sheriff's deputy trying to get the university's attention for athlete's' activities by cutting out the athletic department and the Title IX office, but we want to believe this could never happen here.

From all reports, and having met the guy, Art Briles is a fantastic person, but he stands by his players to a fault. What he did, from my understanding, is to try and serve as a mediator between victims and his players to (i) make sure the victims were taken care of and got the help they need, and (ii) hold his players accountable while avoiding public exposure/embarrassment for 18-22 year olds. He wasn't trying to "get them off"--he involved the Waco Police (which will be the next shoe to drop) and helped come to settlements and plea deals that served mercy and justice. In an ordinary world, we'd applaud someone for doing those things. But in today's environment that is super-sensitive to domestic violence and especially football player involvement (hello, NFL), we get new interpretations and rules under Title IX and VAWA that set forth rigid protocols and reporting issues that have taken away other options. I can see Lavell Edwards and many other "old-school" coaches take the same tact--making sure victims get help they need, and then trying to find a method of accountability for the player that doesn't involve a perp walk.

But the new regulations caught up with Briles and Baylor. He was like Lavell at Baylor--he brought them out of the cellar where they had lived for decades as the annual butt of jokes in the conference, and got them to where they were beating Texas and Oklahoma and every year are in the national championship hunt. They are a top-5 team entering 2016, and he just got canned--it would be like Alabama firing Saban, OSU dumping Meyer. He was the safest of the safe, and he's gone.

I'm not saying that BYU will uncover the same issues on the same level, but I am worried about what that deputy was trying to draw attention to. Art Briles isn't a bad guy--I think he's a great guy and would love for my son to play for him, and for my daughter to date his sons. He's a good guy who didn't update his practices to meet changing social expectations and ever evolving federal regulations.

[Fido]

Wait....so are you claiming the sheriff deputy who sent the rape report to the honor code office to have the football players investigated had contacted the athletic department/Bronco/Sitake/Holmoe and that they were doing nothing about it--which is why he contacted the honor code office?

I've never heard such a claim until now. In fact, the news report that I saw said the deputy was a friend of the accused rapist, and sent the report to the honor code office WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION to do so--and was disciplined for doing it. In fact he was initially charged with retaliation on a witness because the victim was implicated in honor code violations as part of the rape investigation and it was documented in the police report--until he told the story that he was trying to have the football players investigated. If he hadn't sent the report, the school may not have ever learned of the alleged football player involvement as the victim didn't report it to the school and was hesitant to do so due to the circumstances. In fact, she was upset that the school was notified by the deputy and had refused to meet with the honor code office and is leaving school over it--still refusing to meet with the honor code office.

I've not heard anyone claim that the Baylor situation CAN'T happen at BYU--but I've heard nothing to lead me to believe that anyone in the athletic department is retaliating against victims or discouraging them from reporting issues.

[scott715]

Was one of our players involved with this? I remember that person was not even a student.

[Fido]

Was one of our players involved with this? I remember that person was not even a student.

The alleged rapist was not a BYU student. It sounded like some football players might have been present where drug use was going on and eventually the assault occurred or something along those lines. Nothing publicly has been released since the trial has not started yet--so no details are likely to emerge for a while.

[Mars]

BYU is very much in self-investigative mode now, which is good. What inspired it was not good, at all.

[snoscythe]

The BYUPD chief and persons inside the Utah County Sheriff's office have now asked the Utah Department of Public Safety investigate BYU's police department for violations in sex assault reporting and access/dissemination of information:

http://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/e ... 8becc.html

The investigations are growing, and now including outside, independent investigators.

[SenorCougar]

IIRC, decades ago Charlene Wells was selected Miss America the year after previous winner Vanessa Williams had some revealing photos released. How convenient that the next Miss America was squeeky clean. Taking this example one step further, with Baylors recent disclosures, now might be the perfect timing for an honor code university to become part of the Big 10 (or 12). Maybe an over reaction, but I will take whatever circumstance needed to get into a P5 conference.

[snoscythe]

with Baylors recent disclosures, now might be the perfect timing for an honor code university to become part of the Big 10 (or 12).

What's ironic is that Baylor is an Honor Code university that prohibits drinking and premarital sex. However, Baylor ran into its own enforcement issues a long time ago (similar to what BYU is facing today) and Baylor's solution was to only enforce the Honor Code on campus and leave off-campus behavior to the students, pastors, and police.

Part of Ken Starr's statement today (wherein he resigned as Chancellor) was expressing that the way Baylor's Honor Code worked prohibits much of the information and allegations stemming from off-campus happenings from reaching administrators and was part of the institutional flaws that prevented them from seeing the issues.

[hawkwing]

I'm glad that BYU is requesting this investigation. If there has been any wrong doing, lets clean it up and clear it out. If not, lets set that record straight.

As for HC and Title IX investigations, I'm hopeful that the committee they've put together will come up with a good solution.