Art Briles and Baylor

[ImperialOrange]

An early candidate to replace Franklin if penn state doesn't produce on the field.

 

[leftytg]

was what they did illegal?, immoral, improper, shortsited. what would the lawsuit be for?

I imagine it may be a straight forward tort claim of negligence. I'm not a tort lawyer specifically, so there may well be case law in this area I'm not aware of, but it seems the victim could argue that Baylor has a duty to provide a reasonably safe campus environment to its students. Baylor breached that duty when 1) it admitted a football player with a known history of violence toward women and 2) the way it handled the resulting investigation after the sexual assault (I don't have to use "alleged" in this case, as he has been convicted). Keep in mind, the school's "investigation" was so threadbare and insufficient, that the trial judge in the criminal case granted the prosecution's motion to bar the defense from even mentioning that he had been cleared by the school. This breach was the proximate cause to damages suffered by the victim - not only the assault itself, but the continued emotional distress that came with it. The victim was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder. Baylor refused to rearrange classes and tutoring sessions that Ukwuachu and the victim had in common, and ultimately Baylor reduced the victim's scholarship, which led her to transfer. The victim would be able to point to Baylor's similar handling of the Tevin Elliott case (another Baylor player convicted of sexual assault in 2012) and claim that Baylor has a pattern of behavior that is harmful to the sex assault victims of its football players.

Given the conviction, which established beyond a reasonable doubt that the assault did take place, I bet that claim of action would survive summary judgment, and I'd think Baylor would settle long before exposing the football program to legal discovery.

I'm going to go ahead and re-post the Texas Monthly article that raised the issue initially, as it contains a lot of detail of what makes this case so outrageous. http://www.texasmonthly.com/article/silence-at-baylor/

A quick timeline:
- May 2013 Ukwuachu transfers to Baylor after being kicked off the team at Boise St because of violence against women (Briles denies knowing the specifics, Peterson state dthat Briles/Baylor knew and Ukwuachu said that Baylor "knew everything")
- October 19, 2013 - Ukwuachu sexually assaulted the victim
- October 20, 2013 - the victim goes to the hospital and gives a statement to the police
- at some point, Baylor initiates its own investigation - the one that court found so insufficient that its mere mention at trial was barred.
- June 25, 2014 Ukwuachu indicted for felony sexual assault
- Ukwuachu is never suspended or removed from campus.
- May 2015, Ukwuachu graduates from Baylor
- early June 2015, Phil Bennett, defensive coordinator at Baylor, tells an audience at a luncheon for the Baylor Sports Network that the team expects Ukwuachu to be on the field in the fall.
- August 17, 2015 - Ukwuachu trial begins
- August 20, 2015 - Ukwuachu convicted of sexual assault in the second degree.

 

[CuseOnly]

so are you saying that our football team right now houses a felon? I have not heard of any college setting that will admit a felon, can you expand on statement that a murderer has gotten a degree?

You would never hear if a college admitted a felon unless you did research yourself on the student. They do not publish it, nor would the student.

Not a great example as it is Bryant and Stratton
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index....raduation_the_man_who_sent_him_to_prison.html

A felony does not automatically exclude you but most colleges have policies like the below at Ball State.

http://cms.bsu.edu/about/administra...andprocedures/applicantswithfelonyconvictions

I think legally they have to take your application but can disqualify you based on it or if you do not disclose it.
Applicants will not be denied admission based solely on their disclosure of conviction.

 

[texascpa]

Oh get off your moral high horse. Students with criminal histories get admitted all the time. I dare say even those with violent histories remain on football teams. By the way, to my knowledge this guy never played one down of football at Baylor.

wow, who pissed in your cereal. You may be right about admissions, but that doesn't mean the school doesn't have any culpability. Again, a good lawyer should be able to argue a decent case in favor of the victim...in civil court.

 

[Chip]

I think there are tangents in this thread. What it really comes down to is a PR issue for Baylor if Briles admits that he was lying. That's it. And how much heat in this witch hunt age are they willing to put up with.

As for Briles, if he is lying and Peterson had given him the info that Peterson claims, then Briles joins a long list of football coaches who can't think on their feet about anything other than football.

May not hear much more about this but people could do themselves a favor and just be honest and up front. If Briles said yes I heard some unpleasant things but I wanted to give the kid a second chance, then this isn't a story at all.

 

[maxxyz]

I think there are tangents in this thread. What it really comes down to is a PR issue for Baylor if Briles admits that he was lying. That's it. And how much heat in this witch hunt age are they willing to put up with. As for Briles, if he is lying and Peterson had given him the info that Peterson claims, then Briles joins a long list of football coaches who can't think on their feet about anything other than football. May not hear much more about this but people could do themselves a favor and just be honest and up front. If Briles said yes I heard some unpleasant things but I wanted to give the kid a second chance, then this isn't a story at all.

It's a very big deal for Baylor. Title IX rules are no joke, and a university can be in enormous trouble for knowingly disregarding them. Coaches are required to report any activity that is abusive.

 

[syr02esq]

wow, who pissed in your cereal. You may be right about admissions, but that doesn't mean the school doesn't have any culpability. Again, a good lawyer should be able to argue a decent case in favor of the victim...in civil court.

You and I both know that a liberal jury in New York might be sympathetic but a conservative jury in the Bible Belt of Texas would not give a plaintiffs attorney the time of day. Texans would view this case as the plaintiffs making Baylor (and not the football player) responsible for the rape which is preposterous.

 

[leftytg]

I think there are tangents in this thread. What it really comes down to is a PR issue for Baylor if Briles admits that he was lying. That's it. And how much heat in this witch hunt age are they willing to put up with.

As for Briles, if he is lying and Peterson had given him the info that Peterson claims, then Briles joins a long list of football coaches who can't think on their feet about anything other than football.

May not hear much more about this but people could do themselves a favor and just be honest and up front. If Briles said yes I heard some unpleasant things but I wanted to give the kid a second chance, then this isn't a story at all.

Honest question - did you read the Texas Tribune article? I'm having a hard time understanding how one can look at the facts of the case and come away thinking this is simply a PR issue revolving around whether Briles lied about what he knew about Ukwuachu's history. Your post, correctly, says there are a lot of tangents in this thread I agree wholeheartedly with that. However, in my opinion anyway, the tangents consist mostly of the focus on Baylor's admitting a football player with a history of violence. While one's appetite for such transfers may vary, I think most college football fans would concede that it isn't particularly unusual for a program to give a second chance to a talented player with a checkered history.

The real story isn't that Ukwuachu was allowed to transfer. The real story is that the sexual assault took place in October of 2013 and Ukwuachu was never suspended by the school. He graduated this past May and, while he did not play for the team, remained on scholarship and a student in good standing this entire time. Baylor conducted its own sham investigation that was so incompetent, threadbare, and bad that the mere mention of it was excluded from the criminal trial, lest the jury be unduly swayed by hearing he was exonerated by the school. The player who was cleared by the school investigation at a lower evidentiary threshhold was just convicted beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal court. That is incredibly damning to the school.

The real story here is how football, once again, is inappropriately supreme in some places. We saw it at Penn State where P e d o p h I l I awas covered up. We've seen it at Notre Dame and Florida State, where sexual assault cases against players are swept under the rug. As any college football fan well knows, Baylor had a downright pathetic football history prior to Briles' arrival in Waco. Under his leadership, the program has become borderline dominant and brought much in the way of money, fame, and prestige to the school. Briles has had numerous opportunities to leave Baylor for a bigger school and has stayed put. He is a god in Waco. As we saw in State College, when a college coach ascends to a certain level, and the supporting community comes to revere and support the football coach above all else, scary things can happen.

 

[leftytg]

You and I both know that a liberal jury in New York might be sympathetic but a conservative jury in the Bible Belt of Texas would not give a plaintiffs attorney the time of day. Texans would view this case as the plaintiffs making Baylor (and not the football player) responsible for the rape which is preposterous.

do you practice in Texas?

 

[longtimefan]

You and I both know that a liberal jury in New York might be sympathetic but a conservative jury in the Bible Belt of Texas would not give a plaintiffs attorney the time of day. Texans would view this case as the plaintiffs making Baylor (and not the football player) responsible for the rape which is preposterous.

As noted elsewhere, Baylor's problem would concern Title IX. Loss of federal $$$ can be a killer.

 

[orangehomer]

You and I both know that a liberal jury in New York might be sympathetic but a conservative jury in the Bible Belt of Texas would not give a plaintiffs attorney the time of day. Texans would view this case as the plaintiffs making Baylor (and not the football player) responsible for the rape which is preposterous.

if I were the arguer I mean lawyer I wouldn't state that Baylor was responsible for the rape, but I would take the position that they were complicit. they knowingly harbored a rapist on campus because he was good at football, even though another school told him to take a walk, and what did he do? raped again

 

[maxxyz]

if I were the arguer I mean lawyer I wouldn't state that Baylor was responsible for the rape, but I would take the position that they were complicit. they knowingly harbored a rapist on campus because he was good at football, even though another school told him to take a walk, and what did he do? raped again

Was he accused of rape while at Boise State? Or was it battery?

 

[SpartyOn]

What is it with that school and coaches that fail as human beings? Dave Bliss is obvious and there are rumors that Scott Drew might be the biggest cheater in the college game.

Now Art Briles will hopefully come under some major fire.

http://deadspin.com/former-boise-state-head-coach-art-briles-knew-all-abou-1725679767

Go take a look at who their president is and you'll better understand.

 

[syr02esq]

if I were the arguer I mean lawyer I wouldn't state that Baylor was responsible for the rape, but I would take the position that they were complicit. they knowingly harbored a rapist on campus because he was good at football, even though another school told him to take a walk, and what did he do? raped again

The problem with the plaintiff is that she would have to prove that Baylor knew about the player's s*x assault at Boise. Baylor released a transfer form from Boise which declared that the player didn't have any conduct issues or something like that. The player's high school coach came out and said that Boise's staff never mentioned anything about s*x assault. And supposedly the Boise coach called and recommended to Briles that he consider the player. Why would he do that if he knew the player assaulted a woman? Makes no sense.