Baylor officials downplay Title IX failures and blame media for off‑campus drinking issues

Baylor loves its students. | love the students. We want them not only to be safe, but to flourish. We worked hard to achieve that goal in a fallen world, where all too often, students will yield to temptations all around them. We could always do more. And the silver lining of the nine-month ordeal culminating in the events of May 2016 is that no university is more focused on Title IX-related prevention and effective response than our beloved Baylor. To be sure, there were failures and shortcomings. In particular, | lament the now-known fact that first responders were, at best, insensitive to reports of sexual violence. But there are limits to what the University can do with respect to OFF-CAMPUS behavior, especially when alcohol flows freely — and all too frequently, it flows to tragic excess. But that jurisdictional point — off-campus drinking, not infrequently under-age drinking — was deemed utterly irrelevant by American culture’s ultimate mediator, the mainstream media, led in this instance by ESPN. Its provocative investigative reporting avenue, “Outside the Lines,” had found a target on the banks of the Brazos. Several of us, including Coach Art Briles, an honorable and decent man (and football genius) would be fatally hit by the media’s unrelenting fusillade. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_031539