Baylor University, in response to allegations of sexual assaults made against students — including by several football players — announced Thursday that football coach Art Briles has been suspended with intent to terminate, and Kenneth Starr will no longer serve as the president but will stay at the school.
Baylor’s actions come after the university’s board of regents received an independent report from a law firm that investigated the school’s response to sexual assault allegations.
“We were horrified by the extent of these acts of sexual violence on our campus. This investigation revealed the University’s mishandling of reports in what should have been a supportive, responsive and caring environment for students,” Richard Willis, chairman of the Baylor board of regents, said in a statement.
“The depth to which these acts occurred shocked and outraged us. Our students and their families deserve more, and we have committed our full attention to improving our processes, establishing accountability and ensuring appropriate actions are taken to support former, current and future students.”
Starr will transition into a role as chancellor and remain as a law school professor. Starr’s duties as chancellor will include external fundraising and religious liberty; he will have no operational duties at the university.
Athletic director Ian McCaw was sanctioned and placed on probation. He is working to find an interim football coach, according to Richard Willis, who is a member of Baylor’s Board of Regents.
Dr. David Garland, a former dean and professor at Baylor’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary, will serve as interim president. The school said in the release that additional members of the administration and athletics program have also been dismissed but declined to identify them.
Baylor officials said in a news release that the school had hired a New York law firm to contact the NCAA about potential rules violations.
A copy of the report is here, and Baylor’s press release announcing their actions is here. I have no sympathy for Art Briles, and I hope he never coaches again anywhere. Let him spend the rest of his life regretting his actions, or lack of same. And as you read the zillions of stories on the Internet about this, please spare a thought for the victims of those uninvestigated assaults, and give the stories that spend any time contemplating what this means to the Bears’ football fortunes the contempt they deserve. If you need a little extra focus for that, or just a reminder of how we got here, go read this Texas Monthly story from last August, and this Outside the Lines report from last week. Think Progress, Texas Monthly, Martin Longman, and Deadspin’s Diana Moscovitz, who is not impressed, have more.
You’d think Baylor would have learned from the basketball program in the 2000’s, and the junior college transfer disaster. Hey, do you want kids with good Christian values playing, or do you want to win? Baylor made its choice. They brought this upon themselves.
Funny, I don’t remember this kind of problem when Grant Taff was at the helm. Funny.