WACO (WBAP/KLIF News) – A new book chronicling the sexual assault scandal at Baylor University claims that rape victims were shamed for reporting the crime.
ESPN’s Mark Schlabach co-authored the book titled “Violated” and said the problems started at the top.
“If you talked to trustees they’ll tell you that some of the people in charge had a 1950’s mentality. Not only did not want to admit that sexual assault was happening…they didn’t even want to admit that students were having pre-marital sex, drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana,” he said.
Schlabach said many of the rape victims were scared of being shamed when they reported the crime.
“That was a big deterrent for a lot of these women coming forward because they felt like if they told administrators that they were sexually assaulted and they had been drinking…then they would have been disciplined as well,” he said.
He said the victim shaming occurred as recently as this year and not just during the Art Briles football era. He cited the case of a woman who filed a Title IX lawsuit this week, after the university implemented stronger Title IX rules.
“A lot of the allegations that we’d heard before…that she couldn’t get counseling and when she reported it to authorities they asked her if she’d been drinking, they asked her what kind of clothes she was wearing. The victim-blaming questions you get. You wonder how much has really changed,” he said.
There are currently eight Title IX lawsuits filed against Baylor.
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