Why? Why would you let that happen, Baylor? Would you stand by while your football team gang-raped your freshman students?
First of all, where is the national outrage? Where is the battalion of angry social justice warriors ready to unleash their unwavering fury upon those who commit such atrocities?
Where are the bands of feminists who marched in the streets of Washington to protest inequalities and Donald Trump?
Where are y’all now? Where are my combative mobs of pussy hats?
Baylor University is accused of creating an environment that fostered a culture of sexual violence — an environment where 31 football players were able to carry out at least 52 rapes in 4 years. This isn’t just something that slips through the cracks. This prompted a Title-IX lawsuit.
In March, the Texas Rangers launched an investigation into Baylor’s sexual assault allegations. When the Texas Rangers get involved, you know shit is about to hit the fan, because no one messes around with the Texas Rangers.
Now, Baylor’s football program is facing more damning accusations of sexual violence. I didn’t think it could get any worse, but alas, it did.
A former volleyball player has come forward with more disturbing allegations. She says she, along with other women, were gang-raped — as a hazing ritual.
The football team allegedly ‘initiated’ freshman recruits by gang raping semi-conscious girls. Older players, allegedly, would have their freshman players lure freshman girls to a house party where they would drug and gang-rape these women.
This sounds premeditated to me. This wasn't a "drunken bad decision." This was planned.
Not only have they been accused of gang raping semi-conscious freshman girls, the lawsuit alleges that they filmed it.
You can read the whole court document here.
Oh, and it also says they almost killed a dog.
And what the hell kind of hazing is this, anyway? I'm not saying I support hazing of any kind. I will never support hazing new members and I will never haze new members. (I don't see the point of picking on girls who are away from home for the first time in order to see if they can hang.) You can make your new members wear male rompers on Wednesdays or clean the house or do something funny and silly, but y'all are out here killing pledges and gang raping freshman? There's a difference between bonding and torture.
Baylor football deserves the death penalty. At best, Baylor inadequately investigated the allegations, and at worst completely failed to do so at all.
The “death penalty” is a punishment given by the NCAA that basically abolishes a sports program.
Any talk of the death penalty draws a comparison to 1986 SMU. SMU got the “death penalty” for basically cheating. SMU paid its players, which is a direct violation of NCAA rules.
However, Baylor’s negligence resulted in the violation of God only knows how many women — reports say there were 52 rapes in four years, but how do we know there were only 52? How many victims are there as a result of this negligence.
Any reasonable person would say that 52 rapes in four years isn’t something that falls through the cracks. It was gross negligence and obstruction.
Sports programs are not more important than women.
Fraternities are not more important than lives.
The NCAA would be wise and just to levy the “death penalty” upon Baylor.
Moreover, I am sick of this. I’m absolutely sick and tired of this indifference to sexual assault exhibited by far too many universities and their sports programs.
But these institutions can only do so much. WE have to put a stop to this.
This isn’t an isolated incident. Let’s not forget FSU and that whole disaster. Oh, and Missoula. Remember Sandusky and Timothy Piazza? What about Brock Turner?
What the hell is going on here? Where did we stray so far away from basic morality that young men will let their “brothers” die and gang-rape women as a “bonding experience?”
We have gone off the deep end. We no longer respect the sanctity of life and humanity.
Now it’s on us to fix it. Fix the damage that years and decades of gratuitous tv and movie violence caused. Fix the the years and decades of using sex as a marketing tool.
We have to take responsibility for the role we've played in creating this mess and it starts by handing down the death penalty to Baylor University.