The NCAA Should Ban Football at Baylor For a Year

Baylor University announced Thursday that it has fired football coach Art Briles for his role in covering up sexual assaults by football players at the school. Baylor also removed Ken Starr from his position as university president, although he will continue to be the school's chancellor. This was all clearly necessary, but once the dust settles, it's unclear what, if anything, about the university's culture will be demonstrably different.

Baylor also released the findings of the independent review it had commissioned last year from the law firm Pepper Hamilton. Their investigation, among other things, "found examples of actions by University administrators that directly discouraged complainants from reporting or participating in student conduct processes or that contributed to or accommodated a hostile environment. In one instance, those actions constituted retaliation against a complainant for reporting sexual assault."

Even before the Pepper Hamilton findings were released, the ongoing sexual assault scandal clearly involved much more than a pair of high-ranking school officials. It looked like complete, institution-wide failure. A quick rundown:

• ESPN has reported that multiple victims said that Briles, along with other university officials, including Starr, knew about numerous reports of sexual violence by football players and did nothing about it. Baylor also worked with the police to hide investigations from the press and the public.

• The university routinely failed to investigate sexual assault claims, even though it is required to by Title IX.

• The university didn't hire a Title IX coordinator until 2014, three years after it was required by a Department of Education Dear Colleague letter.

• The football team did not dismiss a player who was on trial for sexual assault, and hid that player's absence from the public.

• The university's own investigation into that player, Sam Ukwuachu, was a sham that somehow failed to find a preponderance of evidence (the standard required under Title IX) to expel a player who was later found guilty of sexual assault, under a much higher standard of evidence, in criminal court.

Evidence from multiple sources showed that the apparent cover-ups extended from the football office to the university to the Waco police department. Their efforts protected the status quo and the football program in particular, all at the expense of the victims, whom the university systematically failed to provide with resources and support. It had a chilling effect, as one woman who didn't report her assault told to ESPN:

"I'd seen other girls go through it, and nothing ever happened to the football players," she said. "It's mind-boggling to see it continue to happen. I can't understand why. I think as long as they're catching footballs and scoring touchdowns, the school won't do anything."

This is sickening stuff for an institution that claims to be about higher education. The most important issue, now, is what the school is willing to do to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Baylor fired Briles, but that doesn't automatically mean things will change. Even while they weighed that decision, the school's Board of Regents reportedly were still considering the football program's well-being. Much of the coaching staff responsible for Baylor's problems remains in place. The independent investigation found that "football staff conducted their own untrained internal inquiries, outside of policy, which improperly discredited complainants and denied them the right to a fair, impartial and informed investigation." Phil Bennett, the interim head coach, had told everyone that a player accused of sexual assault would be back on the team, even as he was facing trial.

Starr was removed as Baylor president, but he is still the school's chancellor. Athletic director Ian McCaw was given a slap on the wrist, but still has a job. Many players are supporting Briles, and clearly have not learned from this.

Tweets by various Baylor players look like something major has happened regarding the staff: — RedditCFB (@RedditCFB)May 26, 2016

The college football world is already debating what Thursday's news will mean for Baylor's upstart football program, which has become one of the best in the country under Briles. But how about a more extreme question—one that's almost blasphemous in big-time campus football: Why should Baylor get to play football at all next season?

The National Collegiate Athletic Association has the power to suspend Baylor's team for the season. The NCAA has only doled out this so-called "death penalty" one time, and it was for something far less damaging than Baylor's current problems—SMU putting its football players on a payroll, thereby violating the sacred tenets of college sports amateurism. According to ESPN's Mark Schlabach, Baylor has "hired a New York law firm to make contact with the NCAA about potential rules violations." Whether the association will punish Baylor's football program at all for the actions and obstructions of its staff and players remains to be seen—the NCAA has never gone after a program for Title IX violations. Right now, there is no evidence that they would make the Bears football team sit out for a season. But if anyone deserves this sort of punishment, it's Baylor.

Admittedly, this may read like a hot take—an overreaction, maybe, or a call to punish people not at fault. But there are more reasons for the NCAA to make Baylor sit out next season than there are to let a scandal of this magnitude unfold while leaving football untouched. Because this is football's fault, and the culture surrounding football is indisputably the reason that women at Baylor are too afraid to report sexual assaults. When they do report assaults, the power of the football program appears to gum up the legal process, and deny justice. "In some cases," the Pepper Hamilton report found, "football coaches and staff had inappropriate involvement in disciplinary and criminal matters or engaged in improper conduct that reinforced an overall perception that football was above the rules, and that there was no culture of accountability for misconduct."

With a year off, perhaps Baylor can recalibrate its values, or at least begin that work.

Baylor is, at its core, an educational institution. It receives federal assistance and gets tax breaks because it is supposed to be educating men and women. Baylor can have football if football doesn't get in the way of the university's mission, and if it doesn't put women in danger. But the culture of football at Baylor has put women in danger—many of them, in fact. This isn't the case of a bad egg or two. The favoritism awarded to football is what caused the university to routinely violate federal law and value rapists over survivors. At this point, that is not up for debate. Given that deference to the football program so warped the university's mission as to put students in danger, it's hard to say the program has earned its keep.

No football fans are going to say these women deserved what happened to them, but many may view this scandal as an unfortunate side effect of football—a side effect that might always exist, given that football really is important and popular. But that's the thing: if a side effect is that extreme, then perhaps the thing causing it needs to be excised. If cancer is a side effect of cigarettes, then perhaps the best way to avoid cancer is to stop smoking cigarettes.

Punishment shouldn't be used unless it's helpful, and unless it punishes the right people. That's why imposing a bowl ban or some sort of scholarship reduction, like what the NCAA imposed on Penn State after its own see-no-evil scandal, would not be productive—those penalties disproportionately hurt the football players, when the institution and the culture of the football program were really to blame.

Baylor and those who run the university could very easily be forgiven without fixing the very real problems that the Pepper Hamilton report reveals, all because football is seen as necessary. Giving that kind of deference to the sport is dangerous. That's another thing the report shows, one of its key lessons.

Maybe a year without football would be good for Baylor. Only within the college football bubble does that statement sound so extreme.

baylor report