After a bombshell investigation into how sexual assault allegations are handled by Baylor University that lead to the resignation of chancellor Kenny Starr, it appears that the repercussions for the school’s history with rape are far from over. Last week a Baylor University graduate, using the pseudonym Elizabeth Doe, filed a lawsuit against the university for negligence and violating the civil rights law Title IX.
The allegations against Baylor in the lawsuit are truly disturbing and reflect a systemic reinforcement of attitudes and practices that allowed rape to thrive. The lawsuit paints a picture of a largely out-of-touch administration unaware of the full scope of the problem: the assault numbers dwarf the official numbers reported by the university.
The lawsuit mentions at least 52 instances of rape committed by 31 football players. Out of the five gang rapes reported, at least two of them involved 10 or more assailants on the football team. Compare this to the 17 victims involving 19 football players school officials told The Wall Street Journal about.
One of the players named as one of Elizabeth Doe’s attackers faced rape allegations before. Unfortunately, the school didn’t really do enough about it. Dallas News reports:
One of the woman's alleged attackers — Chatman — was accused of rape once before, the suit says, but the university failed to intervene. In that case, the suit says, a student athletic trainer reported that Chatman raped her at his off-campus apartment, so the university moved the trainer to a female sports team and agreed to pay for her education in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement.
A trainer was raped and she had to change her job and further disrupt her life while the player remained generally unbothered until he transferred schools. That’s not how an institution shows that it cares about rape.
The allegations about the team’s culture around rape is pretty damning. Under former football coach Art Briles respect for women wasn’t exactly a priority. Women’s bodies were actively promoted as commodities to be abused, instead. The Dallas News article explains:
The lawsuit describes a culture of sexual violence under former Baylor football coach Art Briles in which the school implemented a "show 'em a good time" policy that "used sex to sell" the football program to recruits. That included escorting underage recruits to strip clubs and arranging women to have sex with prospective players, the suit alleges.
Former assistant coach Kendal Briles — the son of the head coach — once told a Dallas-area student athlete, "Do you like white women? Because we have a lot of them at Baylor and they love football players," according to the suit.
I know these sort of stories — the ones where student-athletes are showered with expensive gifts and women — often get attention, but don’t let that fool you. This is not normal.
If even a fraction of the allegations detailed in the lawsuit are true, then I am completely unsurprised that their football program has their players knee-deep in rape culture shit. The number of gang rapes is especially disturbing; group participation in a clear act of violently asserting power shows us that raping isn’t a problem with a few special snowflake players — this is a systemic cultural problem. When rape is conflated as sex and consent is a non-factor, young men like Baylor’s football players are empowered to harm and take as they please.
I hope Elizabeth Doe gets at least a sliver of justice available to her.