The toxic environment at Baylor University continues to get worse and worse as more information comes out about the culture at the school, with the latest revelations particularly damning.
According to Jim Vertuno of the Associated Press, the conservative, faith-based school used its code of conduct to try to silence those who made sexual assault accusations, and it served as a barrier for victims who wanted to seek justice.
“A number of victims were told that if they made a report of rape, their parents would be informed of the details of where they were and what they were doing,” said Houston attorney Chad Dunn, who is representing six women who are suing the university.
Baylor’s code of conduct bans alcohol and drugs, and until 2015, it prohibited fornication, adultery, and homosexual acts. According to Pepper Hamilton investigators, women who had been at parties and were allegedly assaulted were told by administrators that their parents would be told of their own conduct violations, threatened with sexual conduct violations, or forced to accept alcohol conduct violations. One women who reported an assault on another woman at an off-campus party said that she was accused of underage drinking, arrested, and handed over to the Baylor conduct office, where she said her drinking was the result of being raped a month earlier. She would be given an alcohol code violation and made to do 25 hours of community service, and the rape claim was never pursued.
“I was told by many Baylor staff that they couldn’t do anything for me because my assault was off campus, yet they had no problem punishing me for my off-campus drinking,” the woman said.
Another Baylor student who blogged about her sexual assault investigation said her sexual history was repeatedly questioned by school officials.
It should be noted that it would be against federal law for the school to not investigate any sexual assault allegations against a student, whether it happened on or off campus.
The school’s football program has been at the center of the controversy, but it’s clear that there was an enormous problem permeating the entire university. This latest allegation is sickening, yet wholly unsurprising given everything else we’ve heard about Baylor’s handling of sexual assaults
H/T Deadspin
