Two of the women who reported Baylor athletes for rape were pushed to accept alcohol conduct violations when they reported their assaults, according to investigators with the Pepper Hamilton law firm who dug into Baylor's response to sexual assault claims.
Victims were basically caught between reporting their assailants and implicating themselves as having broken Baylor's strict rules for conduct by coming forward:
(Pepper Hamilton) determined the school's rigid approach to drugs, alcohol and sex and "perceived judgmental responses" to victims who reported being raped "created barriers" to reporting assaults. Some women faced the prospect of their family being notified.
"A number of victims were told that if they made a report of rape, their parents would be informed of the details of where they were and what they were doing," said Chad Dunn, a Houston attorney who represents six women who have sued Baylor under the anonymous identification of Jane Doe.
Baylor is America's largest Baptist university and violations to its code of conduct can result in expulsion. Dancing was forbidden as recently as 1996:
Fornication, adultery and homosexual acts were included in an official list of misconduct until May 2015, and the current policy stresses that "physical sexual intimacy is to be expressed in the context of marital fidelity.
The threat of a sexual conduct violation for women reporting their own rapes was nothing the university ever addressed, per one of the women the law firm interviewed.
Stefanie Mundhenk, a former Baylor student who The Associated Press is identifying because she has publicly blogged about Baylor's investigation into her 2015 rape allegations, told the AP that she was never threatened by conduct code violations but was repeatedly questioned about her sexual history.
"I was alarmed," said Mundhenk, who is not among those suing Baylor. "It was biased and it was unfair. They were trying to gauge if I was a loose woman. They were looking to attack my reputation."
Starr and Briles are no longer with Baylor. Six Title IX lawsuits have been filed against the university as a result of how alleged rapes committed by athletes were handled.
