Violated: Exposing Rape at Baylor University Amid College Football’s Sexual Assault Crisis — Book Excerpt
INTRODUCTION
In January 2014, Jasmin Hernandez saw her accused rapist sent to prison. Some would say she received justice. And, truthfully, she did get a lot more than most sexual assault victims. But her life was forever altered. She now lives with her parents in Southern California, attends a nearby college, sees a therapist regularly, and is unsure of her future. It’s not the life she planned when she enrolled at Baylor University in the fall of 2011, on an academic scholarship, with plans to become a nurse anesthetist, and full of all the energy and ambition of a college freshman embarking on her own.
There are lots of Jasmins out there. According to national statistics, at least one in five college women experience some type of sexual assault. Many survivors’ stories are never told, but their dreams are shattered and their lives are turned upside down nonetheless. Their friends don’t know why they dropped out of college. Why they became addicted to painkillers. Why they can’t sleep without a bolt on their bedroom door. But those women are out there, and their stories need to be heard.
In this book, you’ll read many stories about women like Jasmin. You’ll read about Erica, a Baylor volleyball player, who alleged she was gang raped by several football players at an off-campus party in 2012. You’ll learn about Jennifer, a Baylor student, who said she and another woman were gang raped by several football players at a party in 2012, and you’ll find out what was happening behind the scenes as a university resisted, but eventually had to confront, the realities playing out on its campus.
Many details of the women’s stories are difficult to read. Not only were they violated sexually and physically while attending Baylor, but school officials who were supposed to be there to protect and support them also ignored them. That’s why so many of the women we interviewed for this book say they were incredibly offended by Baylor officials’ indifference to allegations of sexual assault and domestic violence. They are offended because they expected more from the world’s largest Baptist university.
Many things stood in their way. They encountered a city police department that was inconsistent in its investigations and withheld police reports involving students and student-athletes. A campus police department operating in a veil of secrecy that was more interested in issuing parking tickets and liquor violations than in helping women who came to them for help after an assault. An honor code that made women afraid to report being raped lest they get in trouble with the university for being at a party and drinking. And administrators, employees, and coaches who received reports of domestic violence or sexual assault and never shared the information, keeping secret the heightened and growing risk to women as they stepped foot on the Waco campus.
Jasmin, a Baylor freshman at the time, was one of five women who reported to police that they were either raped or assaulted by football player Tevin Elliott in incidents from October 2009 to April 2012. In August 2015, a jury convicted Sam Ukwuachu of sexual assault (his conviction was later overturned by an appellate court, which ordered a new criminal trial), and in April 2016, a woman accused Bears defensive end Shawn Oakman of raping her.
Throughout the spring of 2016, details emerged of other cases — some years ago — where women came forth with stories of rape or domestic violence, often naming Baylor football players as their alleged perpetrators. For months, the scandal played out on TV, radio, and online, in message boards and social media: Who knew? What did they do? Did Bears football coach Art Briles know? Did Baylor president Kenneth Starr know? The victims were cast as villains, jeopardizing the future of a successful and sacrosanct football program. And Baylor’s Christian values were called into question.
Behind closed doors, the thirty-two voting members of Baylor’s board of regents — a who’s who of Texas’s tony elite and mostly Baylor Baptist alums — were being briefed on a most important investigation, one the university itself commissioned shortly after the Ukwuachu conviction. Philadelphia law firm Pepper Hamilton was tasked with reviewing the school’s response to sexual assault complaints, and after eight months, it didn’t have much good to say about Baylor or its football program.
Finally, in May 2016, the regents broke their silence: The findings were damning and worse than they could have imagined. They found not just ignorance, but willful intent in trying to silence women who reported being sexually assaulted by some Baylor football players. They found university officials retaliated against victims and ignored survivors’ needs for counseling, academic support, and, most of all, justice. And they found a problem that went far beyond their beloved football program.
Action was swift. Briles, who had guided the Bears to at least a share of its first two Big 12 championships and was rewarded with more than $5 million per season, was suspended with the intent to terminate. Starr, a former federal judge and independent counselor, who investigated U.S. president Bill Clinton’s infamous affair with a White House intern, was removed as president but allowed to stay as chancellor. Athletic Director Ian McCaw was sanctioned and put on probation. Within weeks, they all either resigned or were fired.
For the first time ever, a major Division I university ousted its president, athletic director, and head coach of one of the most prominent football programs in the country, playing in a brand-new, multimillion-dollar stadium. It gave the women of Baylor something denied their peers at other universities — accountability. Finally, there was an acknowledgment of wrongdoing and penance.
But it wasn’t over for Baylor. Within a year, it would end up defending seven federal Title IX lawsuits (with one dismissed in late May 2017), facing two U.S. Department of Education investigations, and an inquiry by the NCAA. The Big 12 Conference voted to withhold a portion of Baylor’s share of millions of dollars in revenue until it was convinced actual changes were being made. And there was still the possibility of more criminal charges, after the McLennan County District Attorney’s office and Texas Rangers, the state’s highest law enforcement agency, launched an investigation into whether student-athletes should be charged for unprosecuted assaults, and if university staff in any way might have hindered a woman from reporting her assault.
It’s astonishing and head shaking that there were so many reported sexual assaults at Baylor. But there was power in numbers, a power that a single incident at a school that hits the news here and there doesn’t have. That’s not to say those other schools don’t have the same volume; they might, and the numbers indicate that some indeed do, but the threats, intimidation, deterrence, and hopelessness keep victims from coming forward.
The struggle and the fight of women like Jasmin has been out there before. But never has the struggle, the fight, and the victory. And that is a game changer not just for her and the other women at Baylor, but for all the Jasmins at all the schools on all the campuses across America. If they can win at a minefield like Baylor, they can win anywhere.
Jasmin is still in Southern California. It’s unknown whether she’ll prevail in her lawsuit against Baylor. But she’s no longer a face in the shadows. She’s the face of a revolution.
If you enjoyed this introductory excerpt to VIOLATED by Paula LaVigne and Mark Schlabach, the book is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats for purchase everywhere books are sold, including:
