Ken Starr’s legacy nationally, and at Baylor, is riveting, and eternally controversial
Ken Starr looked at me said in a soft, incredulous tone, “Because they hated my guts.”
He wasn’t talking about the Clintons, Monica Lewinsky, prominent Democrats or any large number of other potential candidates.
He was talking about select members of the Baylor Board of Regents who wanted him out as President of Baylor University.
This conversation took place in a conference room at the Fort Worth Club in October of 2018, when Starr was promoting his new book, “Contempt: A Memoir of the Clinton Investigation.”
The conversation lasted a little more than one hour, and most of it was off the record. He told me an interview I had done with him a few years prior nearly got him fired.
That sort of feather really doesn’t go on a resume, but is rather an odd detail one acquires in life.
He was telling me why he ultimately left Baylor, where he was president from 2010 to 2016. When the conservation concluded, we agreed to talk later.
Ken Starr died last week after a lengthy illness at the age of 76. A memorial service for the former Baylor University President is scheduled for Saturday in Waco.
He leaves a complicated legacy nationally, and regionally. Along with football coach Art Briles, Ken Starr is the man most associated with the sexual assault/Title IX fiasco at Baylor that led to the departures of the two popular, successful men.
Personally, I liked Starr, but I knew who he was. He was a right-leaning, fund-raising politician who was equipped with the vocabulary of a legal scholar. He was media savvy, too.
That’s a dangerous cocktail.
Foremost he is known as the man who pursued former President Bill Clinton for the “Whitewater” real estate deal, and about his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky in the mid 1990s. It led to Clinton’s future impeachment, which was long before impeaching presidents became a right of passage.
Before then, Starr was a judge, and solicitor general, who was nearly appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by President George H.W. Bush; much to the eventual furor of the Republican party, Bush appointed David Souter instead.
At the time we talked in 2018, Starr accepted that his original ambition of reaching certain legal heights had been replaced by being forever known as the man who went after Clinton and Lewinsky.
He knew he was a figure from the 1990s, and that he was both loved, respected, and reviled.
He was understandably uncomfortable as being one of the faces with the sexual assault scandal, which came to light in August of 2015.
Hired in 2010, Starr was immediately popular at Baylor. He was a gifted speaker, and fund raiser; the Baylor faithful loved that “Uncle Ken,” the man who went after the Clintons, was on their team.
Uncle Ken raised a lot of money. The football team under Art Briles won. New buildings were erected all over during a radical makeover of the campus. The visibility of the school climbed.
As time went on, however, some high ranking members of the board didn’t think Starr worked as much as just schmoozed with wealthy alums.
Some high ranking members of the Baylor board didn’t think he was active enough in policy, and leadership, as his position required.
He disagreed with that assessment.
In the midst of the sexual assault ordeal at Baylor, during which school officials were asked by lawyers not to publicly discuss anything until an internal investigation was concluded, he came to Fort Worth to speak at the 29th annual Christian Prayer Breakfast at Will Rogers Memorial Center.
After the event that featured an audience of nearly 1,000, about 40 of us walked across the hall to a small room for a Q & A. Starr stood behind a lectern, and answered some questions.
I was the last in a line of about seven people when the moderator said, “OK, last one.”
Nervously, I stood at the podium and offered a softball question before I said I worked for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and asked him a question about what was going at Baylor.
“Who are you?” he asked.
I said my name.
“You’re Mac Engel?” he said and he pointed at me.
By that point I had followed the Baylor story with a rather strong voice.
When the man who went after the Clintons, and Monica Lewinsky, said that in front of an audience is not a moment my stomach will ever forget.
We had a respectful exchange for about five minutes. After it was done, he came over and gave me a hug.
OK, that was weird but ... memorable.
Later I found out that a few members of the Baylor board wanted Starr fired for violating the school gag order.
How Baylor handled that situation should be taught in colleges all over the U.S. how not to do something.
They silenced Starr, when they should have let him talk for the school. That was his job.
He also should have had a better understanding of the Title IX laws and policies that, until then, were noticeably absent from the university.
He denied such charges, and there was no changing his mind.
When Baylor fired Briles as coach in May of 2016, he was not the first choice of the board. The person they wanted out was Starr.
He lawyered up, another charge he denied. He said he just had legal counsel.
The nuanced reality of Baylor sexual assault saga is that the school was late to acknowledge certain needs for its institution, and didn’t know how/want to implement them; disagreed about the role of its football program when it came to branding the school; empowered a head football coach to be God when all he wanted to do was just coach the team; didn’t know how to handle public relations; had far too many rich people with voices who served on its board; badly fumbled sexual assault claims by coeds, and failed to adequately address their most important asset, their students.
Starr couldn’t quite see his own role in this, other than that he knew as president of the school he had to take the blame. As he said the day he resigned as BU president, “The captain goes down with the ship.”
He did, albeit reluctantly.
We often talked about getting together again, but we just never did. That’s a regret.
Whatever you thought of his politics, “Uncle Ken” was a fascinating conversation because he did lead an interesting life.
This story was originally published September 23, 2022 at 8:34 AM.
