Live
Audio Only
The board of directors from the Big 12 collegiate athletic conference issued a strongly worded statement calling on school officials from the University of Baylor to release “all documents” associated with the ongoing investigations into sexual assault at the University.
RELATED:
Gang Rape of Indigenous Minor Provokes Outrage in Argentina
“The Big 12 Board of Directors is gravely and deeply concerned by media reports about activities involving the athletics program at Baylor University,” the group said in its letter on Wednesday.
The letter was addressed to Baylor University Interim President David Garland, who took over the position after his predecessor Kenneth Starr was fired following an external investigation that concluded there was a severe mishandling of sexual assault cases within the school’s administration.
Among the report’s conclusions were that university administrators tried to discourage students from reporting complaints of assault allegations.
However, in the Big 12 Board’s letter, collegiate officials requested the release of all “unedited written or verbal information” or any “internal documents pertinent to the investigation.”
Currently, the Board is only privy to information that has been made available to the public.
Charges of rape and other sexual assaults on college and university campuses—and how school officials investigate and respond to them—has received significant media attention in recent months.
The Big 12 is a 10-member athletic conference comprised of Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas and Texas Tech.
On a national level, a 2016 study carried out by the U.S. Bureau of Justice, which examined of the sexual "victimization" of college undergraduate students, found that among the schools surveyed only 4.3 percent of sexual battery incidents and 12.5 percent of rape incidents were reported by the victim to any official.
Late last year, in response to several national rape scandals, the White House created a special task force on campus sexual assault in efforts to to strengthen schools' sexual violence policies and procedures.
Despite national efforts to reduce sexual violence, a recent U.S. Senate Subcommittee survey found that 30 percent of institutions in the national sample did not receive any receive training on how to respond to reports of sexual violence.
Newsletter
