Column: Save your soul, Baylor

(Publisher’s note: Orangebloods sent staff member Alex Dunlap to Waco on Monday night to cover the latest chapter in the ongoing Baylor rape scandal for two very important reasons and neither of them have anything to do with athletics. First of all, we’re outraged by the lack of protection the victims of rape and sexual assault have received from the school. Second, the Waco media has sat on the sidelines in the coverage of this story to such a degree that we couldn’t trust that anyone else would be on hand. Therefore, we made sure to be there to ensure that the victims and voices of sexual assaults would have a voice. Below is Dunlap’s editorial column on the events from Monday night.)

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A candlelight vigil was held on Baylor University’s campus Monday evening for the scores of sexual assault survivors the University has left hanging in the wind - unsupported - through the multiyear development of the most egregious and horrifying sex scandal our nation has seen since Penn State’s covering up of Jerry Sandusky’s atrocities.

This isn’t about recounting the facts, allegations, records and statements of the Baylor athletics rape scandal, which allegedly includes allegations from at least seven different women against Baylor football players. Those allegations have been well-documented by outlets such as Texas Monthly and ESPN’s Outside the Lines TV series. If your heart beats and you breathe in air, both content pieces should make your blood boil.

In addition, independent reports have frequently come up in the form of blog-posts, open letters and now, a silent vigil on BU president Ken Starr’s lawn. Most every one casting Baylor, a private, Baptist University, in a more and more sinister light.

. . .

Ken Starr's ceremonial home on the Baylor University campus stood vacant and lit up beautifully on Monday. A grove of sprawling Central Texas oaks on the property are made prominent against the night sky thanks to decorative outdoor lighting. It's a sight to behold - even when the front lawn isn't consumed with the collective glow of so many candles.

In order for any of the 150-175 people who were on hand to hold a candle at the vigil, you needed to be: a victim of sexual assault, a friend of a victim of sexual assault, or, a person whose life has been touched by the rape scandal at Baylor.

Starr's vacant home during the vigil for women sexually assaulted at Baylor served as a fitting symbol. He hasn't been there for them. In fact, in many cases, no one on that entire campus has seemed to be.

“I just think Baylor is home, and I should be safe in my home,” one female attendee said. (All persons interviewed did so under the condition of anonymity for obvious reasons). “I shouldn’t have to worry about someone attacking me, or it being handled properly if someone did. Obviously, it hasn’t been. We’re here today because we’re standing up to a broken system.”

“I’m tired of getting 16,000 emails from Ken Starr about what they have done, when they really haven’t done anything. It’s the same thing, you can’t do an ‘internal investigation,’ that’s not even a real thing. The emails seem like copy and pastes of ones they have already sent, I read all of them. It’s all the same.”

. . .

All any of them wanted was a normal college experience.

“I don’t feel safe here,” one young woman said. When asked if she thought she was alone in this sentiment she said, “We definitely aren’t alone, no woman should feel safe here. No one feels safe.”

“It’s important for Baylor’s students to come out and say we don’t feel safe right now,” another female attendee, who was a Baylor sexual assault survivor said. “I’d like to hear Baylor apologize for the lack of actionable steps they’ve taken towards this - just to say, here’s what we can do in the future, we’re here to protect our students, we’re here to fight for what’s right … I feel like they are trying to defend the policies they are upholding, that’s all and I don’t even really see that taking place.”

That’s when you realize; you think to yourself - “how messed up is this?” Baylor is defending policies, not people. And what’s more - it’s defending policies that those left behind, ignored and made irreversibly hard at such a soft and sweet young age, don’t even believe the University ever even abided by in the first place.

It’s almost impossible to not be consumed with anger over the situation.

Baylor has done nothing, and it continues to do nothing, save Starr’s sappy emails and empty words. Female students are scared to walk around campus or to even go out on a good-old-fashioned date with a nice boy.

. . .

As I approached Waco from the south, having survived the 18-wheeler slalom through IH-35's newest round of upgrades, I couldn't help but notice the giant billboard to my left highlighting the stars of the Lady Baylor Bears basketball team.

And I thought, before I could stop myself for reasons of irreverence (or fear of being politically incorrect), "What if one of those girls claimed they were raped by a Baylor football player?"

Would the support be different for the student-athlete on the billboard than it was for the less-heralded soccer player? Just one of many allegedly ignored Baylor rape cases, this survivor was victim-shamed into transferring schools after being sexually assaulted by a criminal who head coach Art Briles brought to campus and subsequently allegedly harbored post-crime.

“There’s a lot of injustice because the people who the allegations are against are getting the benefit of the doubt (because of who they are within the Baylor hierarchy), but the women never seem to," one attendant said. "We’re always vengeful or spiteful or trying to get back at somebody.”

. . .

One survivor of the Baylor rape scandal, vigil organizer Stefanie Mundhenk, who wrote a blog post entitled “I Was Raped at Baylor and This Is My Story,” spoke to the crowd preceding the ceremony’s moments of silence. Once the vigil was over and the candles had all burned out, Mudhenk led the group afterward to a nearby church for prayer.

After all, this is a very religious university.

“Baylor failed a lot of us here tonight,” Mudhenk told the peacefully assembled participants of the vigil. “I love Baylor. I have a great care for Baylor. You know Ken Starr, in his convocation statements always says to have ‘a care for Baylor’ and I really think that’s what we’re doing here tonight. The bible says to do everything in love, and if we didn’t love Baylor, we wouldn’t be here. If we didn’t want Baylor to change, we wouldn’t be here. If we didn’t have a care for Baylor, we wouldn’t be here. There are hundreds of sexual assault survivors that are going unheard, who justice is not being found for. So, because we love Baylor, this vigil was organized in a way to show just how much sexual assault really impacts the community, the Baylor family.”

Baylor University, who seems more concerned with protecting its image - and perhaps more importantly - its football program that has, for the first time in school history, established any sort of national relevance, has failed its students miserably and has been criminally negligent. All the while, it’s continued the same devious charade that started the whole mess, complete with clear “sweep-this-under-the-rug” mentalities from the top, even as the University weakly attempts the appearance of “coming clean.”

The administration, staff, and football program who systematically enabled such horrors can’t even muster a level of pseduo-empathy that isn’t downright disrespectful to the victims - or anyone with an average I.Q.

In short, Baylor thinks you’re an idiot. In fact, they’re counting on it.

. . .

In addition to Starr’s “16,000” “copy-and-paste” emails to students and faculty, the University has recently released two “official” statements.

One announced the undisclosed settlement that had been struck with the female student-athlete who Baylor did not support while keeping her eventually convicted assailant, Sam Ukwuachu, on campus long enough to get his degree and, per Texas Monthly, continue working out with/around the football team despite alleged knowledge of the crime.

Ukwuachu got his Baylor degree just in time to serve his jail sentence while his victim was basically forced to transfer schools.

This negligence coming at a time when Baylor should have learned its lesson after Head Coach Art Briles allowed Tevin Elliott to continue being a star on the Bears football team through five-to-six accusations of sexual assault, all coming from different women.

Elliott now sits unapologetically in jail, where he’ll continue sitting for the next 20 years. According to OTL, one of his victims reached out to both Briles and Starr to make them aware of her assault directly, via an email that still remains unreturned in the outbox.

. . .

Baylor buried the news release of Ukwuachu’s “Jane Doe”-settlement on New Year’s Eve of 2015 - a night that was clearly picked carefully to draw the least amount of publicity possible.

Starr’s first public statement since OTL’s separate and perhaps more damning and aggregate expose was more copy-and-paste gobbledygook that the University again found a sneaky way to bury, sending out the release on a Sunday afternoon - Super Bowl Sunday afternoon, in fact, just two hours prior to kickoff.

“These people are being ignored,” a participant at the vigil said. “we’re ignoring them, we’re plugging our ears and ignoring their cries. The biggest part of tonight is to get action from the University and also to finally empower the people who’ve been affected by this violence. To be able to do something. To be able to finally feel like they’re being cared for.”

“I believe Baylor has done a very poor job,” one male student, a senior, said. “Some people I’ve walked through this with - the injustice they’ve experienced is just awful, it’s horrible. Some of my very best friends here are survivors of sexual assault. I think the biggest thing for me is know that people care. For the people who are survivors. For them to know they’re no longer ignored.”

Hopefully, thanks to the courage of these young women, their supporters and the media who actually showed up to cover the story in the face of possible ramifications from Baylor higher-ups, maybe the victims will be ignored no longer.

Rest assured, Baylor wants you to ignore its horrifying scandal the same way it systematically enabled a subculture of sexual violence while ignoring its victims.

Don’t let it.

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Note: The following is the statement released by Baylor president Ken Starr in response to Monday night's vigil.

“Last evening, our students came together as a family. They displayed great poise and maturity during the vigil at Allbritton House and in the prayer service that followed at our beloved Truett Seminary.We hear your voices loud and clear.

"You want us to continue to improve. And you want definitive, responsible actions after we receive the insights and recommendations from Pepper Hamilton. You have my word on both.”