Two Women Who Reported Gang Rapes By Baylor Football Players Settle With University

Two women who reported being gang raped by multiple Baylor football players in 2012 have settled with the university, according to ESPN. The financial settlement was announced Tuesday, and the exact terms were not disclosed. The women didn’t file a lawsuit and no details—including the names of the players involved—were released.

Interim university president David E. Garland and the women’s lawyers issued a joint statement, saying that neither the players nor the athletic department personnel who knew of the assaults are still affiliated with the school.

Members of the school’s Board of Regents said last month that 17 women have reported 19 sexual or domestic assaults involving football players since 2011, including four gang rapes. The two gang rapes at the center of this settlement are included in those four, according to ESPN. The settlements are separate from another report of gang rape that former coach Art Briles knew about but did not report himself, ESPN reported.

An official report of the scandal has not been released, making it difficult to know the exact scale of what happened as well as who knew what and when. An independent investigation conducted by a law firm released a findings of fact in May, noting “specific failings within both the football program and Athletics Department leadership, including a failure to identify and respond to a pattern of sexual violence by a football player, to take action in response to reports of a sexual assault by multiple football players, and to take action in response to a report of dating violence.”

Additional details have been released sporadically over the past six months—from the university, from individual regents, from members of the football coaching staff sharing incorrect information in an attempt to salvage Briles’s image—but there is no comprehensive report available from the independent investigation.

Though that initial mention of “sexual assault by multiple football players” was released in May, the fact that athletic department staff knew about a specific gang rape and did not report it was not made public until late October. The weeks since have brought severe public relations missteps and more horrific details about the gross relationship between gang rape and Baylor football. These include a new university website terribly named “ The Truth”; a hugely unflattering 60 Minutes ; players choosing to wear black uniforms that were, and then allegedly weren’t, a protest of Briles’s firing; and the university finally confirming that Briles and former athletic director Ian McCaw had known about one alleged gang rape and chosen not to report it, weeks after the school’s own regents had made their first statements on the subject.

Baylor football was 6-0 before that first public statement regarding a specific gang rape. They have been 0-5 in the weeks since.

[ ESPN]