Texas state representatives are calling for potential financial sanctions and an investigation into Baylor University’s handling of sexual assault claims.
“I feel that there is an obstruction of justice that has happened there,” Rep. Roland Gutierrez, who filed a resolution to investigate the school said. “And therefore we should have a higher authority looking at them, at all levels. Sunshine is the best disinfectant, and we aim to try to get that done here in Waco, at Baylor this year.”
In a press, Rep. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, said he’s visiting with the Governor’s office and the Texas Department of Public Safety to look into investigating the school.
In a letter to Gov. Greg Abbott asked to “allocate at least $5 million from DPS in order to carry out a comprehensive Texas Ranger investigation that will address the damages caused to these victims,” the letter reads.
Rep. Guiterrez – who was joined by Rep. Diana Arévalo (D-San Antonio), Rep. Ana Hernandez (D-Houston) and Rep. Carol Alvarado (D-Houston) during Monday’s press conference – also called for reductions in the $10 million in grants Texas sends to the Baptist university. That funding – according to the Texas Tribune – is used for students needing financial assistance.
Baylor University, in a responseto Rep. Gutierrez’s resolution, offered an Office of Civil Rights investigation that beings that week as an example of “its pledge to extend our full cooperation with governmental and law enforcement authorities surrounding the issue of sexual assaults that occurred within our campus community several years ago, as we have done with other external inquiries that are currently underway.”
For more than a year now, the school has been engulfed in a sexual assault scandal. The Philadelphia-based law firm Pepper Hamilton found “fundamental failure” in the school’s response to sexual assault allegations. Investigators provided the school with 105 recommendations for improvement. The school says it’s implemented 80 of those policy changes.