All of the principals from the Baylor sexual assault scandal have now moved on, but its stink continues to hover around the university.
Former Baylor AD Ian McCaw testified last week in a lawsuit levied by 10 women suing Baylor and dropped explosive accusations against the school’s leadership, saying the board had “an elaborate plan that essentially scapegoated black football players and the football program for being responsible for what was a decades-long, university-wide sexual assault scandal,” in testimony obtained by the Waco Tribune-Herald.
Describing the board’s motivations, McCaw said: “It’s bad for business … It’s bad for Baylor’s brand, bad for admission, bad for tuition revenue. And obviously you know Baylor is heavily reliant – it does not have a large endowment, so it’s heavily reliant on tuition revenue. So if there’s a dip in admissions, a dip in tuition revenue, that severely affects the university.”
Corroborating reporting by Mark Schlabach and Paula Lavigne in their extensive 2017 book, McCaw laid blame at the feet of the Baylor police department and particularly former chief Jim Doak, saying he ignored rape reports and that one Baylor PD dispatcher placed a woman reporting a rape on hold so he could “order himself a meal.”
McCaw said the board orchestrated the Pepper Hamilton report to pin the problems on the football program in order to shield the rest of the university from the blowback, saying regent J. Cary Gray would compose a “misleading finding of fact skewed to make the football program look bad and cover up the campus-wide failings.”
McCaw resigned from Baylor in May 2016 and resurfaced as Liberty’s AD in November of that year, where he is still employed.
