MBA 620 The Managing Officers and Board of Trustees Respond Discussion

1. Did the managing officers and Board of Trustees respond appropriately to the issue in this case?

2. What is the business ethics issue?

3. Who are the most important stakeholders to protect?

4. What should Baylor have done differently about Starr, if anything?

5. Who is the board responsible to? Why did it do what it did?

6. What is the best moral value for the Board here in doing the right thing?

7. Is allowing Starr to teach an authentic ethical compromise? Why? Why not?

Baylor Demotes President Kenneth Starr
Over Handling of Sex Assault Cases
By MARC TRACYMAY 26, 2016
Photo
Kenneth Starr has been credited with raising hundreds of millions of dollars for Baylor, the
country’s largest Baptist university, in part by yoking its fortunes to football. Credit Cooper Neill
for The New York Times
Kenneth W. Starr, the former independent counsel who delivered a report that served as the basis
for President Bill Clinton’s impeachment in 1998, was removed as president of Baylor
University on Thursday after an investigation found the university mishandled accusations of
sexual assault against football players.
The university also fired the football coach, Art Briles, whose ascendant program brought in
millions of dollars in revenue but was dogged by accusations of sexual assault committed by its
players — an increasingly familiar combination in big-time college sports.
Mr. Starr was stripped of his title as university president but will remain Baylor’s chancellor and
a professor at the law school. The chancellor position is “centered around development and
religious liberty,” a regent said on a conference call Thursday afternoon, adding that Mr. Starr’s
“operational responsibilities have been removed.”
Mr. Starr’s demotion delivered a twist to the biography of a man whose reputation was built on
what many considered an overzealous pursuit of allegations of sexual transgressions by Mr.
Clinton. Now he is being punished for leading an administration that, according to a report by an
outside law firm commissioned by the university’s governing board, looked the other way when
Baylor football players were accused of sex crimes, and sometimes convicted of them.
“We were horrified by the extent of these acts of sexual violence on our campus,” Richard
Willis, chairman of Baylor’s Board of Regents, said in a statement. “This investigation revealed
the University’s mishandling of reports in what should have been a supportive, responsive and
caring environment for students.”
Mr. Starr said in a statement to news organizations: “I join the Board of Regents and the Senior
Administration of the University in expressing heartfelt contrition for the tragedy and sadness
that has unfolded. To those victims who were not treated with the care, concern, and support they
deserve, I am profoundly sorry.”
Violence against women on college campuses has risen as a national conversation in recent
years, and one particular thread has been whether athletes in big-time sports like football and
basketball are afforded favorable treatment by universities and communities that come together
to support and protect successful teams.
Document
Baylor Findings of Fact and Recommendations
An investigation found “fundamental failure” by the university in its handling of accusations of
sexual assault against football players.
Critics have said that Baylor sacrificed moral considerations — and the safety of other students
— for the sake of its winning football team. The investigation said as much, describing the
flouting of federal gender-equity law and rebuking a university leadership that “created a cultural
perception that football was above the rules.”
In one instance, according to a summary of the investigation released by the board, university
administrators discouraged an accuser in a manner that “constituted retaliation against a
complainant for reporting sexual assault.”
What investigations did occur, the summary said, “were conducted in the context of a broader
culture and belief by many administrators that sexual violence ‘doesn’t happen here.’”
Mr. Starr, who was solicitor general and a federal judge before taking on the Clinton case, has
been credited with raising hundreds of millions of dollars for Baylor, the country’s largest
Baptist university, in part by yoking its fortunes to football. Much fund-raising was centered on
building a gleaming on-campus home field, McLane Stadium, which opened in 2014, the same
year that Mr. Starr added the title of chancellor to his role as president.
“Let me be clear,” Mr. Starr wrote in a public letter in February: “Sexual violence emphatically
has no place whatsoever at Baylor University.”
That Baylor had an apparently functioning athletic department was seen as an achievement in
itself: The university experienced one of the worst college sports scandals ever after a men’s
basketball player murdered a teammate in 2003, with a subsequent investigation revealing drug
use and payments to players, resulting in harsh N.C.A.A. penalties.
Baylor said it had retained a law firm for the possibility of an N.C.A.A. investigation into the
latest transgressions.
The circumstances took on a new dimension nearly a year ago, when a former football player,
Sam Ukwuachu, was convicted of sexually assaulting another Baylor athlete and sentenced to six
months in jail. During the trial, a former girlfriend of Mr. Ukwuachu’s testified that he had
assaulted her several years earlier, when he had been a football player at Boise State. Baylor
denied that it had been apprised of Mr. Ukwuachu’s history; Boise State disputed that denial.
The Ukwuachu case came a year after Tevin Elliott, a former Baylor player, was convicted of
sexually assaulting a Baylor freshman. Two other Baylor students testified that Mr. Elliott had
also sexually assaulted them. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Subsequent news reports have found several other accusations of sexual assault by Baylor
athletes, including one against two players that Baylor did not investigate for more than two
years.
After Mr. Ukwuachu’s conviction, Mr. Starr chose Baylor’s faculty athletics representative, a
former federal prosecutor, to lead an inquiry into the university’s handling of Mr. Ukwuachu. A
week later, based on that investigation, Mr. Starr recommended that Baylor’s board hire outside
lawyers to conduct another investigation.
Soon, Baylor announced that the Regents had retained two lawyers from Pepper Hamilton to
conduct a “thorough and independent and external investigation.” Pepper Hamilton, a firm based
in Philadelphia, said it reviewed more than one million documents and conducted 65 interviews,
including with “individuals who identified as victims/survivors of sexual assault or dating
violence.”
Such investigations are sometimes cited by defendants in Title IX lawsuits as proof that the
university did not possess “deliberate indifference” to a problem of sexual assault, according to
Erin Buzuvis, a Title IX expert and a law professor at Western New England University.
Some courts, Ms. Buzuvis said, “might put a little more teeth on that requirement.”
Baylor settled a lawsuit by an accuser of Mr. Ukwuachu’s last year, while one by an accuser of
Mr. Elliott’s was filed earlier this year.
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The Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights is investigating nearly 200 postsecondary
institutions under Title IX over sexual violence cases, but as of Thursday, Baylor was not among
them.
Athletic Director Ian McCaw was placed on probation, the board said, while Mr. Briles was
suspended with intention to terminate. Several news media reports said the football team’s
defensive coordinator, Phil Bennett, would serve as interim head coach. Mr. Willis, the board’s
chairman, said on the conference call that Pepper Hamilton’s findings had nothing “specific” to
implicate Mr. Bennett.
Mr. Briles, a Texas lifer, was one of the most successful coaches in college football — and one
of the best paid, with an annual salary of nearly $6 million, according to USA Today (as a
private university, Baylor is not required to make such figures public).
Formerly Houston’s head coach, Mr. Briles installed an unorthodox, wide-open offense and built
the Bears, historically a football also-ran in a state dominated by larger neighbors like Texas and
Texas A&M, into a powerhouse. In 2011, quarterback Robert Griffin III won the program’s first
Heisman Trophy — a statue of Griffin, now with the Cleveland Browns, graces the front
entrance to McLane Stadium — and the team won or shared the Big 12 title in 2013 and 2014.
The allegations in the Baylor report are similar to others that have surfaced at universities with
prominent athletics programs. Florida State’s Heisman-winning quarterback Jameis Winston was
accused of rape in 2012 (he denied the charge) and was not disciplined by the university after an
incomplete police investigation and a hearing. At Tennessee, a lawsuit filed this year partially
blamed a noncompliant climate for sexual assaults by five athletes.
Despite a Department of Education letter in 2011 advising colleges to have detailed, appropriate
guidelines for handling accusations of sexual assault, Baylor did not appoint a full-time Title IX
coordinator until late 2014, according to the investigation.
In 1985, Baylor received a partial exemption to Title IX for several policies that it said conflicted
with its sincerely held religious beliefs, such as condemnation of “premarital unchastity.”
The report released on Thursday found that Baylor’s religiously informed outlook on drug use,
alcohol and premarital sex made accusers fearful of coming forward.
A version of this article appears in print on May 27, 2016, on page A1 of the New York edition
with the headline: Baylor Demotes Starr Over Sex Assault Cases. Order Reprints| Today’s
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