Baylor University keeps digging themselves deeper and deeper in to a deplorable hole where it seems as if officials at the school are more interested in protecting how the campus looks to the public; while trying to sweep whatever they can under a proverbial rug.
First, there was the mess of the football program under former head coach Art Briles. For a full breakdown of the actions from these events you can check them out over at USA Today’s, For The Win as we don’t have the time or space to bring that back to light.
The mismanagement of sexual assault claims by women to the university has forced Title IX coordinator Patty Crawford to resign.
She wrote on her Facebook page: “They’ve lied and they will most likely (will) continue to lie. “So they’ve lied and they will mostly likely continue to lie. The tactic to discredit me, scare me, hurt me…it will work for a portion of the public and I get that. But, I’m pretty sure it’s a tactic to DISTRACT all of us from what this is really about. It’s not about me, or my job, it’s about discrimination…it’s about BAYLOR. It’s about a handful PEOPLE that actually run Baylor that hate that the work of the Title IX Office (not me, but the amazing team collectively making change) was EFFECTIVE. And that goes against a lot of the long-standing grain of the Baylor-way…and it’s costing them MONEY. Two of their favorite things..the Baylor way and money.”(ESPN)
Her leaving the school came after two more women made claims of sexual assault while they were attending Baylor. These women lined six others who filed a Title IX civil lawsuit against the school. This was originally filed on June 15th with three women starting the lawsuit, with three more joining on roughly two weeks later.
That was enough for Crawford to leave after less than 24 months on the job. As the number of women kept on increasing alleging that that they suffered mentally and physically as a result of the school’s inaction.
According to KWTX, “Baylor University’s former Title IX coordinator agreed to a settlement offer during a daylong mediation of a retaliation complaint she filed with the school’s Human Resources Department, but then quit after refusing an additional amount of money to sign a confidentiality agreement, according to a source with direct knowledge of the negotiations.”
That additional amount of “hush money” was $1.5 million with a confidentially agreement of an extra $50,000.
Baylor will more than likely survive another scandal to their school. Its football team will go out on Saturday to a sold out crowd and blow out Kansas, and the story will be less about Crawford and more about the Bears contending for a Big 12 championship and a spot in the playoffs.
Which, as Crawford pointed out in her post fits their tactic of distract from what’s going on under the rug while flaunting the on the field play. If the Bears continue to excel on Saturdays it will make the Big 12 Conference at least $6 million for making the semifinals, with another $2.16 million to cover expenses. (College Football Playoff)
And, with a payday of about $30 million from conference payouts, you can see why Crawford is making these claims.
