Baylor and its remaining football coaches are openly battling over Art Briles

On Friday, Baylor released a statement following a Dallas Morning News story released earlier this month.

In the statement, the school argues former athletic director Ian McCaw, former football coach Art Briles, and another “sports administrator” did not follow protocol after being told of the alleged sexual assault of a woman student-athlete by five football players.

The timeline, according to the statement

The school makes clear what Briles, McCaw, and the administrator should have done.

There are three places to which one of these officials should have reported the allegation, per Baylor: “the University's Title IX Coordinator (then the VP of Human Resources), Judicial Affairs, or the Baylor University Police Department.”

Baylor’s Title IX office first heard of the incident in 2015, two years after it was initially reported to McCaw, Briles, and the administrator.

After admitting that he was, in fact, told by the women’s head coach about the incident, McCaw said he used discretion in not reporting it, which Baylor says athletic department officials cannot do.

While a victim may choose where or how to report a sexual assault, once informed of the report, athletics personnel may not exercise discretion to not report.

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The Athletic Director explained that he did not take any action, including reporting the alleged sexual assault to Judicial Affairs, because he thought the victim did not want to report the incident.

This puts Baylor and the football staff at odds.

• Parts of the school’s statement run in direct contradiction to the statement tweeted by 30 Baylor assistant coaches and football staff members.
• The coaches said there was no Title IX office at the time, but that doesn’t mean there was nothing that could have been done in regards to Title IX. The school said its Title IX coordinator was “then the VP of Human Resources.”
• The coaches also say the woman’s head coach reported the incident to the judicial affairs office. That is refuted by the school, which says: “In neither of the statements, nor in his interview, did the head coach state that he reported the alleged assault to Judicial Affairs.”
• According to the coaches, Briles told the woman’s coach to take it to police. Again, he is not allowed to use that discretion. It is on the women’s coach to go to the proper authorities, and once Briles knew about it, was also on him to do the same.
• Briles apparently followed up with the coach, and when he did, he was told that the woman did not want to report. Despite that, whether to report or not wasn’t up to Briles or the woman’s coach.

On Nov. 5, some Baylor fans and players wore black in support of Briles. Since being fired, he’s non-specifically apologized and said he would’ve done some things differently.

Women’s activist Brenda Tracy and others have called for Baylor to end its football season early.