According to a report by Mac Engel at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the school was cited for “a lack of institutional control,” which is one of the most serious charges the NCAA could impose against a program.
Bears fans and everyone in the Big 12 is holding their breath, wondering if this means Baylor will receive the “death penalty,” a sanction that would result in the NCAA shutting down Baylor’s program outright.
Baylor University paid ex-football coach $15 million after sex scandal pic.twitter.com/yu0kitBjc5
— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) March 31, 2018
Baylor’s former football coach Art Briles — who was fired by the university in 2016 after law firm Pepper Hamilton completed an internal investigation — was also cited by the NCAA. The association alleges Briles “failed to promote an atmosphere of compliance” while in charge of the program.
Even though Briles no longer coaches at the college level in the United States, he could still receive an NCAA show-cause penalty, and this could affect any future employment in sports for him. Only until recently was Briles able to find a position. He accepted a job to coach a team in Florence, Italy.
For almost 10 years, the private Christian university in Waco, Texas has been entangled in a scandal surrounding campus sexual assaults, some of which were allegedly perpetrated by members of the football team. And because the school’s administration allegedly failed to provide counseling and support to accusers and survivors – there have been 10 distinct Title IX lawsuits levied against the school.
Former Baylor Title IX coordinator Patty Crawford has been a vocal critic of the school’s leadership at the time of her October 2016 resignation. Crawford alleges that an all-female student group, the “Baylor Bruins,” was “on call for football players to make sure that they had a good time,” according to Phillip Ericksen at the Waco Tribune-Herald.
In Crawford’s deposition that was made public on Tuesday, she alleges that multiple members of the group were forced to quit after becoming pregnant with football players’ children. Crawford also said that several powerful faculty members, administrators, and board members did not put much stock in Title IX protections because they are “not biblical.”
All this is coming up at a time when it’s been revealed the former chair of Baylor’s Board of Regents, Richard Willis made degrading comments about female and black students. According to Sarah Brown at The Chronicle of Higher Education, Willis told a local businessman that Baylor had “such good [N-word] football players [because] we have the best blond-haired, blue-eyed p—y in the state of Texas.”
Interestingly, on August 7, 2018, in an effort to continue avoiding sanctions from the NCAA and Big 12 Conference and to show a good-faith effort on their part, the law firm representing Baylor reportedly recommended the school self-impose a 2018 bowl ban. However, Baylor denies the claim.
It all comes down to Baylor having 90 days from when it received the notice to reply to the NCAA. The NCAA will then respond within the following 60 days.
