Open Letter from Former Baylor Regents

From the KVUE.com website:
http://www.kvue.com/news/local/form...parency-resignations-in-open-letter/402577160

Fourteen former Baylor Regents released an open letter Tuesday calling for transparency and accountability from the current board in the university’s handling of the campus-wide sexual assault scandal.

In a statement from the Bears for Leadership Reform, the letter also asked for resignations of some of the current regents.

Full content of the letter:

Dear Regents,

As former Regents, we want to thank you for your service to Baylor, and we recognize it takes a great deal of time and dedication to serve in this very important capacity. However, we want you to know we have grave concerns about the recent actions, and inactions, of the Baylor Board of Regents. The recent sexual assault scandal has cast a very dark cloud over Baylor. We are deeply saddened for the victims that have suffered assaults, or sexual assaults, and we hope and pray they are getting whatever help is necessary for them to recover physically and emotionally from these horrible events.As tragic as the above events have been, we have equal concern about the overall leadership of Baylor during this crisis and the lack of transparency and accountability in dealing with the Baylor Family. These concerns are covered below:

1. Pepper Hamilton Investigation And Lack of Transparency. We have great concerns about the Pepper Hamilton (PH) investigation. Some believe this investigation was flawed. The admission by the Regents that PH did not talk to any of those accused of committing the assaults lends itself to criticism that the investigation was not thorough, or complete, and perhaps was unfair. The reality is that until Regents release the actual “agreed upon scope” of the investigation, it is very difficult for anyone to determine if the investigation was or was not flawed. The details of the assaults certainly should not, and do not need to be released. However, we strongly believe that the pertinent facts of the investigation in the form of a written report and the agreed upon scope of the investigation should be released to the Baylor Family.

2. Failure to Live Up To Governance Standards. In the released version of the Pepper Hamilton Recommendations, PH makes a number of troubling recommendations in Part III about Regent conduct and practices. These recommendations include:

• A plea to “resolve governance issues at the Executive Council and board levels;”
• That the entire Board of Regents undergo Association of Governing Board training;
• That the Board “review considerations and standards for new Board membership, including actual or perceived conflicts of interest, and implement due diligence standards in the selection of Board members;” and
• A curiously specific recommendation to “educate and train board members to remain within appropriate reporting protocols and lines of communication when addressing members of the administration and the Athletics Department (consistent with employment contracts).
• These are troubling statements to be made about a Baylor Board of Regents. The selection and election of Regents – the ultimate leaders of Baylor University – is perhaps one of the most important actions of the Board. If the office of Regent has been compromised through the lack of exercising proper fiduciary responsibility, lack of appropriate due diligence, or conflicts of interest by Regents, the Regents responsible for these actions should resign their duties and allow their position to be filled by another person.

3. The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). SACS has just announced they are putting Baylor under a “Warning” status. The accreditation of Baylor is certainly one of its most important assets. The fact that SACS has felt it necessary to put Baylor under a “Warning” status appears to be just further indication the Regent Board is not providing the governance leadership that a major university board should be providing. As former Regents, we are respectfully asking the current Board of Regents to demonstrate transparency and accountability by taking the following actions:

1. Ensure that all victims are getting whatever help is necessary for them to move forward with their lives.
2. Ensure the Baylor campus is safe and that all of the appropriate Title IX procedures are in place and implemented.
3. Release ALL of the facts from the PH Investigation.
4. Release the actual agreed upon scope of the investigation between PH and Baylor in the form of a written report.
5. If current Regents on the Board have acted inappropriately as suggested in Section III of the PH Recommendations, those Regents – no matter how many – should resign from the Board.
6. The Board should take seriously the importance of SACS accreditation, and should provide the necessary leadership, guidance, and governance to remove the accreditation blemish that Baylor has recently received.

Once again, we thank you for your service, but it is now time for this Board of Regents to be transparent and accountable to Baylor alumni, faculty, students, and friends of the university.

Sincerely,

Mary Chavanne Holmgren
Randy Ferguson
Randy Fields
Gale Galloway
Gracie Hilton
David McCall
Drayton McLane
Jaclanel McFarland
Laree Perez
Ella Pritchard
John Starky
Emily Tinsley
Hal Wingo
John Wood

 

Interesting...

Warning label from SACS is HUGE - IMO.

Do any of you think this will cause any current Regents to take action to improve / increase transparency, accountability, gain training or RESIGN as suggested in this letter?

I don't.

I think the strategy will continue to be: Keep the wagons circled at Bailor.

I could be wrong, but I suspect the current Regents, as best they can, hope they can eventually beat the rap. Business as usual, ignore, no comment, obstruct, deny, avoid, drag the whole damn sordid affair out. Furthermore hope somehow the quiet settlements out of court will cause the media, victims, society lose interest, etc.

 

Until proven differently this is the course of action. Is the Toilet Stadium fully paid for? If not it is going to be a chore to finish the funding after this is all over.

 

Anyone recognize or know any of the signers?

 

Drayton McLane

 

https://bearsforleadershipreform.org/about/

 

Some of those members were great supporters of Robert Sloan, Ken Starr, McCaw, Briles, et al. I am not impressed.

 

They "hope" the victims are getting the help necessary, but not one of their demands?

They want revenge against the regents and nothing more.

 

https://sports.yahoo.com/news/big-12-withhold-25-percent-revenue-share-baylor-154110990--ncaaf.html

From another thread

 

I was a student at UT from '69 to '74 and attended several other schools before that and afterwards. What one could not help but notice was the deference given to athletes by large parts of the communities. What Trump said about celebrities and women seems to be true about athletes as well. I don't know the relative levels of behavior at Baylor compared to other schools but a couple of friends who were recruited decades ago at different schools have told me that women were made available when requested.

The extent to which athletes are treated as hallowed objects is difficult to understand given that they are just a bunch of kids, many of them with egos inflated to bursting level.
It is important to keep in mind that the true purpose of a university to nurture athletes and win conference championships and produce many Belicheks and Sabans. Right?

 

I wonder how many of these concerned former regents were around when they were pulling body bags out of the Basketball Program? An outlaw program like atm is one thing, but Christ, we are talking about a school with murderer's, a head coach attempting to conspire to get another player to implicate that the murder could have been drug related, that had Darrell Johnson run out of the NCAA and a couple of Assistant's brought up on RICO charges and now God only knows how many young women who will NEVER be able to have a normal, loving, trusting relationship with any male in their life. I mean WTF??? All OU, atm, Cougar High and SMU did in the 70's and 80's was go to great lengths to make sure everyone knew that they paid more for their players than everyone else did. OK, at OU there was the gang rape, an AK-47 being shot out on to Lindsey Street from the Athletic Dorm, and the Cougar High reject that did get shot in OU Athletic Dorm. And poor Gary Gibbs is who had to pay the price for that. I mean I have never seen any studies on the subject, but I gotta believe that kids getting gunned down in the Athletic Dorm can't be good for recruiting when you have already lost 12 scholarships.

But then again, I believe in the Loch Ness Monster.

 

I want to see those that committed the acts tried along with the coaches that covered up the incidents. But, since the perps are accused and not yet tried, their attorney is not going to let them talk to anyone about the case, and possibly end up with an admission of guilt that is in a written report and discoverable. That most likely would constitute a waiver of the privilege and for the alleged culprit, it's game over. I want them brought to justice, but that statement by the "former" Regents is ridiculous. Actually that whole epistle is lame.

 

SPORTS NEWS IN BRIEF
5.25.17 Vol 53 Issue 20
"Mom Finds Disturbing Reading Material In Teenage Son’s Bedroom"




http://www.theonion.com/article/mom...tm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=SocialMarketing

 

The BU BORs should watch ESPN's 30 for 30 "Pony Excess" over and over and over and then one more time again.

And then read Sir Walter Scott's 'Marmion' from which we oft repeat: "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive."