The Baylor University sexual assault scandal was the result of numerous allegations of and convictions for sexual and non-sexual assaults committed by Baylor University students, mostly players on the Baylor Bears football team. During a period from about 2012 to 2016, school officials suppressed reports of rapes and sexual misconduct. [1] In 2016, Baylor's football team came under fire when it was revealed university officials had failed to take action regarding the alleged rapes and assaults. The scandal led to the ousting of head football coach Art Briles, the demotion and eventual resignation of Baylor president Ken Starr, the resignation of athletic director Ian McCaw, and the firing of two others connected with the football program. [2] It also led to the resignation of Baylor's Title IX Coordinator, Patty Crawford. A plaintiff's attorney, Jim Dunnam, accused Baylor of implementing a ″concerted strategy to get the public to believe this is entirely and only a football-related problem." [3]
Tevin Elliot, a former Baylor linebacker, was sentenced on January 23, 2014, to twenty years in prison and fined US$10,000 for each of his two sexual assaults committed against a Baylor student in 2012. Sam Ukwuachu, a defensive end, was indicted on June 25, 2014, on two counts of sexual assault against a Baylor student-athlete and was found guilty by a Texas court on August 21, 2015. That conviction was later overturned, granting Ukwuachu a new trial, but was reinstated in 2018 and again reversed in July 2019. Jacob Anderson, 20-year-old Phi Delta Theta president, was charged with sexual assault on March 3, 2016, following a fraternity party. [4] Anderson pleaded no contest to a charge of unlawful restraint as part of a deal which included mandatory counseling, a $400 fine, and three years of probation. [5] Shawn Oakman, a former All-American defensive end, was arrested on April 13, 2016, on charges of sexual assault against a female student. [6] In February 2019, Oakman was found not guilty of the charges against him.
In September 2015, following the conviction of former football players Tevin Elliot and Sam Ukwuachu for sexual assault, [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] as well as allegations against other players, Baylor University commissioned the law firm Pepper Hamilton to conduct an independent external investigation regarding Baylor's handling of sexual violence. Also, in April 2016, former player Shawn Oakman was arrested on sexual assault charges. [12] [13] Head coach Art Briles was terminated on May 26, 2016, following the presentation of Pepper Hamilton's report. Baylor president Ken Starr and athletic director Ian McCaw also resigned. [14] Jim Grobe, a former Wake Forest head coach and former chairman of the AFCA Ethics Committee, was hired on an interim basis. [15] [16]
Following the threat of a lawsuit by Briles for wrongful termination, Baylor provided an out-of-court settlement. Briles and Baylor are co-defendants in a lawsuit filed by a woman allegedly sexually assaulted by a football player. [17] After Briles's departure, many Baylor football players, including Jarrett Stidham, announced it would best for them to transfer to other schools. Seven members of the 2016 recruiting class requested to be released from their National Letter of Intent, and six of the then-seven commits in the 2017 recruiting class decommitted. [18]
In a lawsuit, a previous student accused the university of fostering a "hunting ground for sexual predators" and suggested that the football program used rules prohibiting students from engaging in pre-marital sex and drinking alcohol as a method of intimidating students into silence. Further, there are reports of a student suing the university in 2016 because officials ignored rape claims. In response to the multiple lawsuits against them, the school stated, "Baylor University is pleased that the parties were able to resolve this dispute". [19]
Tevin Elliot joined the Baylor football team as a redshirt in 2009. Two years later, he was suspended for academic misconduct, but Starr lifted the suspension. [20] Before being indicted on two separate counts of sexual assault, Elliot had allegedly assaulted three other women who kept it a secret and never pressed charges. [21]
Elliot's first known sexual assaults were committed against a former Baylor student twice in the same night at a party on April 15, 2012. According to testimony given during the trial, the victim was the fifth person to be assaulted by Elliot. During the trial, two of the other victims detailed their sexual assaults that took place on October 31, 2009. [21] On January 16, 2014, the jury indicted Elliot on two separate counts of sexual assault, allegedly involving two 18-year-old women on the same night in April 2012. A week later, on January 23, 2014, he was found guilty and was sentenced to twenty years in prison with a fine of $10,000 for each of his two sexual assaults. The jury had found him guilty in less than an hour and deliberated his punishment for two hours.
After his arrest, Elliot was suspended from Baylor's football program and campus on the claim of violating student and team policies. He later finished his degree at Bacone College in Muskogee, Oklahoma. [22]
In 2013, Sam Ukwuachu transferred to Baylor after requesting to be released from Boise State, wanting to be closer to home. Citing his depression and erratic behavior, Boise State released Ukwuachu. [23] It was widely rumored that he was dismissed due to domestic violence or sexual assault incidents, both of which are denied by Boise State. [24]
On the night of October 19, 2013, Baylor was celebrating its homecoming victory against Iowa State. Ukwuachu, who was ineligible to play the 2013 season because of National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) rules regarding transfer students, was celebrating with the rest of the team nonetheless at the Waco convention center. Also at the celebration was an 18-year-old "Jane Doe" who was on friendly terms with Ukwuachu. Shortly before two in the morning, Ukwuachu texted Doe, who replied by saying that she would call him. During her testimony, Doe said that she had called him moments later and agreed to go with him to get something to eat or to go to another party—but after he picked her up that night, he turned the wrong way out of her apartment complex and drove her to his apartment instead. Doe described Ukwuachu as extremely agitated, getting angry with his dog and with a friend on the phone, who was in from out of town. After she resisted his initial advances, Doe testified, he began to grab her. "He was using all of his strength to pull up my dress and do stuff to me", she said. "He had me on my stomach on the bed, and he was on top of me." Doe testified that he pulled her dress up, pulled her underwear to the side, and forced her legs open with his toes, her head pressed between his bed and his desk, then forced himself inside of her. Doe was a virgin at the time. Texts between Ukwuachu and Doe from earlier in the week, before the encounter, were also revealed to the jury during trial. In those messages, Doe is unambiguous that she is not interested in a physical or romantic relationship with Ukwuachu; he sent her messages like “we have unfinished business", in reference to a previous encounter, which she characterized as Ukwuachu trying to put "moves" on her. She replied "I don't think we need finish any business" and "let's just chill." The night at his apartment, she testified, “I was screaming stop and no.” According to her testimony, after he finished, he told her "This isn't rape", asked her if she was going to call the police, and left her to find a ride. Two of Doe's friends arrived in the middle of the night to pick her up, at which point she told them that Ukwuachu had raped her. The next day, Doe went to the hospital and was subject to a sexual assault nurse examination, which found vaginal injuries including redness, bleeding, and friction injuries. [25]
The police decided not to make an arrest, but prosecutors brought the case before a grand jury. On June 25, 2014, the grand jury brought an indictment against Ukwuachu for two counts of sexual assault. The true bill of indictment does not provide any details about what happened and gave zero notice to the media. On August 7, two days after the case was exposed to the public, a judge granted a gag order on everyone involved in the case that prohibited the release of information to the media. The trial began with the jury selection in Texas on August 17, 2015. There are no publicly available details or accounts of how the night in question unfolded. There is no timeline of how the police handled it, or how the university responded, or any discussion of Baylor's investigation. [26]
Ukwuachu was convicted of sexual assault and sentenced to 180 days in jail, 10 years' felony probation, 400 hours of community service, and had to register as a sex offender. In March 2017, Waco's 10th Court of Appeals overturned Ukwuachu's conviction and ordered a new trial based on evidence they felt shouldn't have been suppressed. This evidence indicated the victim sent text messages indicating she wanted to have sex with Ukwuachu. In a unanimous decision, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reinstated the conviction. They ruled that the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it did not allow into evidence text messages the woman sent to her friend while the woman and Ukwuachu were traveling to his apartment on the night of the reported assault and found the evidence "harmless". [27]
On July 11, 2019, the 10th Court of Appeals reversed and remanded Sam Ukwuachu’s 2015 sexual assault conviction after stating that prosecutors used false testimony and violated the person's due process rights. [28] In the legal findings it was stated that there is a “reasonable likelihood that the false impression affected the judgment of the jury.” [29] In 2020, the sexual assault conviction was again reinstated. [30]
In February 2012, Shawn Oakman was dismissed from the Penn State Nittany Lions football team for a violation of team rules for stealing a sandwich and, while demanding the return of his identification card, for grabbing the wrist of the clerk who took it. [31] Oakman enrolled at Baylor. In 2013, Oakman had been previously accused of assaulting an ex-girlfriend, but no charges were pressed, which led to Oakman not being disciplined by Baylor. It is unclear if Baylor knew of the incident. [32]
A woman reported an assault that happened early Sunday morning of April 3, 2016, according to a Waco police affidavit. The woman told police she met Oakman at a nightclub and walked with him to his apartment, where she said Oakman forcibly removed her clothing and sexually assaulted her. The Associated Press generally does not identify alleged sexual assault victims. The woman told police she was able to leave the apartment after she was assaulted. The affidavit says the woman was "treated for her injuries" at a medical center, where a sexual assault examination was performed. Oakman was freed on $25,000 bond after his arrest. [33]
On July 20, 2016, Oakman was indicted by a grand jury on charges of second-degree felony sexual assault. Oakman, once considered a potential second- or third-round pick in the 2016 NFL draft, went undrafted after his arrest. The trial was initially slated for December 2018. [34] [35] However, it did not begin until February 26 of the following year.
On February 28, 2019, Oakman was found not guilty of sexual assault. [36]
In May 2016, Baylor terminated the contract of longtime head football coach Art Briles over the scandal. Then, Baylor University President Ken Starr resigned due to the scandal. [37]
The Title IX Coordinator Patty Crawford resigned after alleging that Baylor University did not allow her to do her job properly. She claimed that the more she pushed to help the victims, the more resistance she felt from the board of advisors. She insisted that the board was full of “a group of seniors that made sure that they were protecting the brand... instead of our students”, contradicting earlier statements that she had made in an August interview. In that interview, Crawford had said that the university had an “excellent board that listens and is very supportive”, that she had a “good partnership” with the athletics department and an "excellent board (of regents) that listens and is very supportive, specifically the committee that I report to. One step at a time, we’re building it." [38] Crawford also mentioned that she decided to resign because she did not want to be a part of the problem, rather, part of the solution to seeking justice for Jane Doe. [6]
As early as 2014, KWTX-TV claimed, "the football team may have only played a very minor role in any documented sexual assaults on Baylor students." In a 2016 story, the television station stated, "a closer review of [a 2014 report commissioned by Baylor University officials] reveals years of failures by University officials to fully adopt federal laws and guidelines governing student safety″. [39]
In a 2017 lawsuit, victims suing the university alleged that from 2011 to 2014 at least 31 football players committed at least 52 rapes. [40] In March 2017, the Texas Ranger Division confirmed that it was investigating the university. [40] On March 7, 2017, US District Judge Robert L. Pitman refused to dismiss a lawsuit by victims against the university. [40] On September 18, 2023, notification of settlement was entered into online court records for a lawsuit first filed by 15 victims in June 2016. [41]
Kenneth Winston Starr was an American lawyer and judge who as independent counsel authored the Starr Report, which served as the basis of the impeachment of Bill Clinton. He headed an investigation of members of the Clinton administration, known as the Whitewater controversy, from 1994 to 1998. Starr previously served as a federal appellate judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1983 to 1989 and as the U.S. solicitor general from 1989 to 1993 during the presidency of George H. W. Bush.
Jim Britt Grobe is an American football coach and former player who was most recently the defensive coordinator of the San Antonio Commanders of the Alliance of American Football. His previous position to that was as head football coach at Baylor University. From 2001 to 2013, Grobe served as the head football coach at Wake Forest University. In 2006, he was named ACC Coach of the Year by a unanimous vote and AP Coach of the Year for coaching Wake Forest to an 11–2 regular season and the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) title.
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