University. They will be signing books which are for sale courtesy. When you buy a book at the festival you support the author, the festival and the local independent bookstore is a nonprofit Organizations Mission is to support low income schools with book donations via its reading Rockstars Program and to fund grants for libraries. The book purchase today makes a difference. It is also running a book drive this weekend to help rebuild the texas libraries. If you donate 15 the texas book festival will each match a donation with a book to rebuild a library affected by harvey. One book equals three. You are funding very many important initiatives. I will be the moderator today. Im the author of a book called College Football in the politic of a race. I am joint appeared enjoyed appear today im very excited about this. She isnt invested a reporter. She is experienced in covering several topics. With the des moines register. And the news tribune. In creighton university. To the right. The a regular contributor to espn tv. Such as outside the lines. In college up football life. You may have heard of some of those. The atlanta journalconstitution. And numerous other magazines and newspapers. The new york Film Festival and other organizations for his writing and reporting. Thank you guys for being here. We head about 45 minutes for the first 30 to 35 minutes. We will open it up to audience q a in a minute. For those who are new maybe had only heard little bits and pieces of it. Can you tell us about what has unfolded there in the last few years. Espn became interested in the story because of just because from Boise State University he have some off field issues there. He have taken himself to a Mental Institution a couple of times in verse dismissed for the team and just showed up at taylor. They did a really good job of getting him there but he was accused of raping a female soccer player. I did a couple of stories. And then paula came in they have previously been convicted of a Sexual Assault and then she went back and found that he had been accused by three other women of Sexual Assault and baylor had not done enough to address that. And one of the things that we started talking to some of the women who had reported that he had raped or physically assaulted them and he was through those interviews that there were a lot of problems. Addressing what the university was and wasnt doing to help these women. And that story that sparked the have another several cases. It was never properly handed by baylor. Another Domestic Assault case. The same time that we were putting these out. To make sure that they were doing their own investigation and all of this came to a head in may of 2016 when the universitys investigation done by the law firm was finished and it came out with findings of fact that basically said across the board of the university have failed in its handling of Sexual Assault cases they would voluntarily leave we kind of thought to the story was somewhat coming to an end. There was one lawsuit filed. We certainly learned after that it was really only the beginning in fast forward to today i think we had had ten lawsuits filed. They ares theoretically still investigating. The Texas Rangers were investigating. They were being monitored by the accrediting agency. A lot of it is still pending today as are a number of those lawsuits. They had three baylor players facing cases or trials in the near future. It was overturned by the appeals court. There is another player who has been charged with felony stocking. Im impressed by how well you guys keep up with this for so much. You mentioned that so much attention about what happened has been focused on the Football Team and rightly so. The stuff that has come out about what happened and even Athletic Department is very alarming but hamilton found it was so much bigger than that. Can you talk a little bit about what parts of the university maybe board of regents or other entities that deserve more scrutiny. Its a really good point to make. A lot of attention is on the Football Team. It was a much bigger problem at baylor a lot of who is handling. In the Police Department they found a lot of victims. There was we were told there was a interview with the former police chief where a person who had reported rate. Dont you think you should of not been out that late. And comments about things. There were a number of women with the affairs when it came to alcohol violations one aspect of this a huge component of what happened is the Worlds Largest university. There were a lot of women who said they would come to report a rape and they were formally interested in the fact that they had been drinking. There were women who were afraid to come forward because they knew if they came forward and said that they were raped. They would get in trouble for having have alcohol. There were a number of findings from the law firm that the whole aspect of a culture of ignoring these assaults or having a system that deterred women from coming forward it was present at all levels of the university it does go to the very top because they are the ones that are responsible with making sure that there is someone in place to handle these. One of the bigger thinks big things that has already played out. Until when the government required them to have one as far back as 2011. It was systematic failure across the campus. A lot of the attention was on the Football Program because the Football Program is the front porch of any university. The most highprofile it was getting a lot of attention. They were accused of rape. It was a campuswide epidemic is a nationwide epidemic the president s office failed. It was just failure across the board. The first two words in the book are the bible. You actually began with the story about baylor and you sort of touched on this. I would like to hear more from this the role that religion has played and maybe even at the the reaction to the reporting that has happened. Thats actually a pretty interesting story. The mother of one of the women who justified in the assault case i have gone down to talk to her and her daughter and she called me and said she was at church that day and there was a particular passage that she wanted to tell me about. It was one from the second book of samuel about the it was the rape of one of davids daughters by one of his sons or stepsons. And the whole story goes about at the end of the story it talks about how david ignored her cries for help and that basically set up he did not address this properly. He created revenge within the family. I was right there. I knew this is exactly how we need to start with this idle passage. Its so applicable to the story and were talking about a university where religion played a role in what has happened. In a very negative role at that. This is an investigative book. Youve 70 sources. All that is marshaled here. How did you bring all of this information and these people together. And how do the two of you work together. I dont work well with others for the most part. They dealt with most of the female victims. She is really good at what she does. You can just cant just send in the request and say give me joe smiths arrest record. You are not allowed to ask for someones room arrest record. For every physical assaults. Basically any felonious acts. And then match it up in a database. For the same ten years and thats how we found a lot of the incidents that occur and that was the database reporting. She is one of the best there is at doing that. We have already been reporting the baylor story obviously i think we sold the book. We had been on the story may be august or september. We had been on the story for a year. A lot of the reporting have been done. But for the next three months probably we really went at it with the reporting. We probably sat down in mid january and started writing because i have to get through football season. Thats my day job. She was working on other stuff as well. I think the manuscript was due i think eight to ten weeks. They called for 80,000 words. That was only because i drove to omaha nebraska and took away the computer. She said we have done this and this. Were 40,000 words over already. In the toughest part about it was its obviously something people that want to talk about. I have said this everywhere we had spoken. If it wasnt for the courageous women the story never gets out. [applause]. We went to california and met with jasmine hernandez. She was the first young lady to come out and say my name. The lawsuit. That really encouraged a lot of other women to come forward and see what happened to them while they were enrolled in baylor. It just really change the entire dynamic. So baylor is currently one and eight. For the football season. Under the new had coach. This is the first year. Yesterday was actually the first win. What you think of the longterm health of this program. And more than that not just the firing of the former had coach. But also the current struggle will it serve as a warning. We were there last summer. A really good guy. He understood the culture of baylor and what he was getting into. From a football standpoint i was probably a lot worse than he had realized going in anytime and there is a coaching change there is can be a transition obviously. This one was completely different because a lot of the players that were there are no longer there. I think longterm they will do the right thing. They have instituted a lot of policies to prevent this from happening in the future. They hired them from missouri. It is a struggle this year. I think longterm they will get it done. It is a three or four or five year rebuilt. It rebuild. It has made a difference nationally. Minnesota had an issue last december before the bowl games. Some players have been accused of gang rape of a cheerleader. And players were dismissed. I think the message has gotten across. It is still happening. I think there are a number of universities in programs they dont want to be the next baylor but at the same time every time we say this makes you believe that its getting out there. You still see things happening. Could you not have handled that better. There is still a real lack of transparency. The story is so much bigger than baylor. They are the perfect example of a larger issue within College Football. You have both actually written about this. And you had used the work repeatedly. What should we learn from baylor that could apply or can help us understand whats going on. I think one of the things that you see everywhere there were a lot of things. A lot of these players come in. Since they were in junior high or high school. They are the best. They are to have can have every door open for them. And the rules dont apply for them. I think the other thing that you see. A number of coaches they just want to deal with the exes in house. They dont want to deal with this. You simply cant do that. Making it a priority. You see some coaches that are doing that. You see the message to the actual young men that they need to be the ones to be at the frontline of this. Do this, dont do this. What needs to be done as there needs to be more of a message to the men dont rape women. If you see something happening intervene. In the building on that. This is a book about College Football but its also about campus Sexual Assaults. Its a much bigger topic we had been talking for the last six or seven years under the current president ial administration in the current federal administration. Can you tell us a little bit about how they are changing what the potential impact of this could be. Whether its putting more of an insufficient this is unschooled. And she has have this in history. To be more on the side of the mostly young men who have been accused of this. Some of what we have seen change. By the rescinding of those guidelines. There is a lower standard of evidence. If you have to take things like this. Beyond a reasonable doubt. Your 51 sure so now youre at a 75 which is higher. There is no deadline. One of my biggest issues with this. Is that one of her emphasis has been that the policies dont work. Its hard to say they dont work. Some of them never even got to the point where they were even implemented that. I think its fair to criticize the system as it was. In many cases clearly baylor is one example. The current policies werent working. There were some things that needed to be done. The huge pendulum shift. There are a lot of women and men who reported Sexual Assault who feel like they are now going to have their rights and their needs. Its a federal law. Its not as much about proving whether he or she did it. To help them stay in school. When they called the Counseling Center your problems are too serious. We can help you. When they called to get assistance with tutoring and stuff like that because she was falling behind in her classes because she was having to go to the Police Department to talk to detectives. There is another victim who had to recount the details of her assault to 26 people before she could move her class. There was another woman when she talked to the hamilton attorneys they could only do it if she was lying on the floor in the fetal position. There are other issues that play with title ix other than proving whether or not somebody did it. The Heisman Trophy winning quarterback who is accused of Sexual Assault. In the title ix process there it was the United States Supreme Court justice. One of the most respected lawyers and judges in the state. Youre telling a 22yearold victim to go up there and in interviewer friend. And most of these hearings at universities across the country lawyers are not allowed to talk. They can advise their clients but they are theyre not allowed to speak during these hearings in a lot of cases you are determined whether or not someone sexually assaulted someone and whether a young man or woman has been accused of it is going to be kicked out of school. I think there are changes that need to be made. The as a point. We Senior Vice President telus on the record until the stuff came up at baylor he thought it was a lot that required him to have as many female scholarships as mail scholarships and sports and that was the only thing he was responsible for this is a Senior Vice President. I thought that mattered that i have enough scholarships to give the girls get the girls as i did the boys. Where lots of people were before 2011. We had set everywhere this is not an issue that we need to make this point. It is not one that was solely a baylor problem. It is a problem across the country. Every campus where they have a pretty good spotlight. There has even been a lot of good reporting recently on middle schools and high schools. In title ix applies for them also. What has the response been. What is the response been for you guys and especially from baylor people. See mac i feel like weve have a pretty good response. I think there had been a lot of people that read the book and realize how heavy it was on the stories of the women and speaking to marks point about showing how this is really affecting women in their lives in their need for services and resources. It was really heavy on that. I think there were a lot of people that really appreciated it. To go behind the 140 characters of social media on this issue to really tell people this is what it is like to be in the situation. They basically turn you down flat. When they said the first story with one of the women and it was such drastic detail of her assault and i said can we put this in the book it so graphic but the young woman wanted in their and she wanted all in there because she wanted people to know what she went through. I can only take it in doses. I have to sit it down and then come back. It is an important read. So much of it is characterized. To the point where there had been studies about how often it was written in the past. That makes sense to me. For a lot of people it would be the first time that the really taking there is so much in your book. What do you hope the take away is. One thing that people get out of reading as the research. Theres so much victim bringing going on out there. And how these things happen and what the repercussions are. We hope people take this more seriously. I had two teenage dollars. They will read it about two weeks before they go to college. It is why we were doing an npr interview in dallas and a woman said yes i drop my doll it dash mike my daughter off at college for the first time. I just hope its educational. I hope the victim blaming the steps and we do a better job of educating not only our sons that no means no i think thats the most important thing. Weve about 15 minutes. Hopefully we can get through all of these questions. Think you for writing the book. And in full disclosure and in full disclosure i have written a lot of tuition checks your book was hard to pick up and it was hard to put down. I would like to know if you could say a little bit more about accountability. There has been some accountability in the administration in the process and whatnot. But what really concerns me is the board of regents level. All of this happens this culture i believe is at the doorstep of the board of regents. When we see that has not been unanimous i see like the entire Community Needs to know who knew about the stuff and when did they know it. And what do they do about it. Im just wondering if you have an opinion about whether full accountability will ever take place even at the boards dash mike board of regents level. I have heard many times over the last year to year and a half. Its a fair question. They run the university. They are the ones that are supposed to be hiring the people who are in charge of title ix and who are in charge of making sure that all of these safeguards are there for training in response and handling the campus police. I had been reporting on Higher Education for a long time. Ive never come across a more tightlipped dash mike tightlipped board. When you agree to be part of that system you go in there with the understanding that this is a private school. A lot of people are not pleased specifically targeted. The parents were sending their kids there. And they are writing the tuition checks. In the system with a private school that is really the only official can ability they have. There are as you mentioned earlier a number of pending lawsuits. And hopefully theres some deposition that can bring some people to the table. But that is very uncertain at this point. I think there will be some disclosures in discovery. In terms of people ask us for the last two years will we ever see the Pepper Hamilton report. There was a Powerpoint Presentation and there were a lot of attorney notes. Whether or not they were ever going to force them to turn over. There is an accountability the board of regents their sole purpose is to oversee the university and they will tell you the university was not being operated correctly. From what you know was the Pepper Hamilton Investigation Complete you will have access to the Powerpoint Presentation. We do not had access to the power points. We were told some of what was in it and we wrote about that extensively in the book but they have not i think we will see unless they settle that is something we will see come out in the lawsuit and at that point i think people will be able to determine whether or not it really is an exhaustive examination of what happened. Sexual assault is a crime rape is a crime. Can you swing to me dash mike can you explain to me why they automatically generate a report to the police. In a Perfect World the women who come forward and report these things would be told of their options to report this to cap this place were to wherever jurisdiction happened in but they do have the right to go through and a woman does not want to report she has the right to go to the Title Ix Office and get it handle that way there are people that have criticized that because they feel that results in underreporting unless publicity of the crime that you dont care about. Again, i will close up by saying ideally, through the title ix process people who are talking to that young woman or young man would also let them know of all of the routes they can take through the criminal Justice System as well. You can choose if you are a student which of those to you are going to enter into. What we found at baylor though was a lot of these women the incidents happened off campus. And they would say theyre not responsible even though 75 percent of the students live off campus. Thank you. Before i ask the question the bible passage you refer to was in him and tamara. My question i had been following this case fairly closely ever since i first started reading about it a couple of years ago and as a fan of it in conference rival who has its own issues with institutional failed however iny reading of it curious that the system failed in a tragically though ultimately kind of innocent manner or was it a deliver cover it on the part of the university. I do get a little bit of both. There were people there who have been there since the 1950s and were not properly trained and were not equipped socially or professionally to deal with issues like this. We talk to a former chief of staff for the president who said that when she was put into charge of title ix and went out and found Educational Programs and materials if they mentioned the word rape were sexual activities they were not able to use them. I do think there was a little bit of coverup. I think with some people there was more intent. They have plenty of their own issues. When you mentioned the baptist culture it reminds me of Brigham Young university. Give any advice for campuses that have a strong religious presence. I think one thing that could be helpful and one thing they have started to do is get outside consultants to kind of come in and talk to you about how to do these programs and how to run a judicials affairs system. If you are a religious institution you still want to be held up by your moral and ethical code. Its a tough line to walk. Etiquette needs to be clear especially in Sexual Assault that there needs to be some sort of amnesty. I believe that actually happened in texas legally. I think thats right. I think they enacted law that would require that. That brings up another point. There are other entities that could step in and make sure that there are systems that the school still have to follow even though they are religious institutions. There was a fringe segment of the baylor fan base who said were only writing the book because they were antichristian. I wrote seven books with the duck dynasty guys the only thing better than that was we were only writing the book and porting that to save the longhorn network. It seems like a long way around to do that. I am a im a Texas Public School teacher. In the Public School system the student has to go through an intake bullying program that they had been schooled on and what what bullying means in every aspect of it and what that looks like online and being responsible online and then find those things. If an infraction does occur they cant feign ignorance. We keep saying education and the lack of education we have seen a rise of this. We had have the issue with the Duke Lacrosse Team and now we have this here. Is there something going on at the school level at either the freshman orientation classes and especially the Athletic Department to where this is what Sexual Assault is. This is what it look like. It will not be tolerated and there is no no longer i didnt know. Is there anything like that going on ive got children. I need to make sure they are protected as well. One of the most Amazing Things i heard was afterthefact when they brought someone in. Someone into baylor to talk to the team and when she said that she was talking about the Football Players about consent. If a woman is intact cicadas you cannot consent this player told us its up to the entire locker because no one had ever told them that before. I definitely think it starts there. We can bring dash mike blame the board of trustees. There has to be some personal accountability on these players and we have to do a hell lot better job of raising our kids also. What that looks like differs from school to school and can often be one video. The other thing i remember someone told me when i second them about baylor for a lot of the students especially coming out of Texas High School going into a conservative culture the first thing they have ever talk to them is to say dont raise someone. Theyve no other kind of education and then what they get is this very negative version of it. What it looks like is very important depending on who your student body is its coming in. Earlier paula was mentioning all the different investigations coming towards baylor from different directions. The big conference is withholding millions of dollars in Television Money waiting to see that baylor actual changes. And when questioned about it it has been a series of athletic scandals and we want to see real change. You mentioned the association. They had cleared baylor the rangers have not done anything a new president seems to be issuing press releases and posturing. What do you see as the mechanism for this. I agree that they have a lot of problems. The subject j is baylor. What is the prospect for them to actually fix this. You bring up a good point with the investigation. The ncaa has been criticized even when it fishes it investigation for not doing anything that has any teeth and the big 12 is still pending. Its hard to say when there well ever be a finding of what that will be. And baylor made a commitment along with putting out all of these findings that they were going to do 105 Different Things that they were and implement according to them they have done them all. When you think things are going in the right direction there is a lawsuit filed earlier this year by a woman who said she was assaulted the spring after all of these things wouldve been implement it. There is two sides to every story. Obviously for at least one woman the new system was not working. And i got to the point where she was angry enough or she filed a lawsuit. What i would love i would love to know what the experience has been of the women this past year have come forward and reported assault and what that looks like. Thats what it really comes down to. I would like to know what the claimant is on campus now for women that are there and are they seen anything different at these parties were among their friends i think that is going to be really the only way he will tell if there has been real change made. Im sorry, were out of time. Incorporation you so much for your help today. They will now be signing books in the book ten. You guys can find them
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