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The persistent ghost of Baylor’s past

THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Current and former Baylor students hold a rally last year, warning of sexually assaults on and off campus. Calling the rally Un-silence the Survivors, they read an open letter to the administration about improvements on how the school should handle sexual assaults.
Current and former Baylor students hold a rally last year, warning of sexually assaults on and off campus. Calling the rally Un-silence the Survivors, they read an open letter to the administration about improvements on how the school should handle sexual assaults. Rod Aydelotte Waco Tribune Herald, via AP

Baylor University has a ghost problem.

Last year, a sexual assault scandal rocked the Waco campus, unearthing years of a systemic culture of rape and athletic privilege.

One lawsuit claims that more than 50 sexual assaults happened in a four-year span.

Baylor failed its students. An independent report commissioned by the university said as much.

The board of regents created community distrust by not being forthright from the beginning. When regents finally started publicly working toward a solution, mass firings and mandated policy changes swept the campus.

Everyone wanted to make the school safer. They also wanted to keep the Baylor brand untarnished.

This created a strategy conflict, and it has be an extremely rocky road to redemption for Baylor — mostly by the university’s own doing.

Finally, it seems like Baylor is on a path to move forward. The university is trying to be transparent with a new webpage detailing the institutional changes it’s making. Administrators hired a new football coach. The students, faculty and staff are undergoing Title IX training.

The school is slowly rising from the ashes, but its tarnished reputation isn’t being repaired.

That’s because of that ghost in the attic, rearing its ugly head just when the school has a chance to breathe.

The NCAA is investigating wrongdoing. The Big 12 will withhold 25 percent of Baylor’s future revenue distributions until it is satisfied that Baylor is complying with Title IX and conference requirements.

And lawsuits keep being filed, repeatedly depicting Baylor’s poltergeist in detail.

It is commendable how aggressively the school is tackling institutional issues and how the students themselves seem to be actively rebuilding Baylor.

There’s good work there, and we want to see Baylor be its best again.

The NCAA and the Big 12 have the most sway to help Baylor get rid of its ghost. If the university can convince the Big 12 of its redemption, that is one step closer to convincing us.

But if there isn’t continuous diligence about acknowledging and dealing with the past, even long after the current crop of students has graduated, it will be a struggle for Baylor to be more than a haunted house.

This story was originally published February 10, 2017 at 8:21 PM with the headline "The persistent ghost of Baylor’s past."

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