WACO, Texas-Activists planned a candlelight vigil Monday night outside the home of Baylor University's president to protest what they regard as the university's weak policing of sexual misconduct, particularly by student athletes.
The prayer vigil follows an ESPN report earlier this month about three students who said the Southern Baptist-affiliated university in Waco failed to act on allegations that they were sexually assaulted by a former football player later convicted in one of those cases.
The group Survivor's Stand was promoting the Monday night vigil and urged sexual assault survivors or those who know one to gather outside Albritton House on the Baylor campus.
Policies regarding Baylor's compliance with federal requirements that it address and prevent sexual harassment "are inconsistently followed and, at times, ignored altogether. Perpetrators are repeatedly allowed to go free due to these shortcomings. This makes our campus unsafe," the group said in an online statement Monday.
In a letter Sunday, Baylor President Kenneth Starr said university leaders' "hearts break for those whose lives are impacted by execrable acts of sexual violence." He also noted that Philadelphia law firm Pepper Hamilton, which Baylor hired, is conducting an outside review of the university's response to reports of sexual violence. When the review is complete, "we will determine how best to share the firm's recommendations," Starr said.
Starr also wrote that federal privacy laws and related requirements by the U.S. Department of Education have prevented Baylor from being forthcoming with past reports of sexual violence against students.
Starr's letter came hours after the release of a letter signed by more than 1,300 Baylor alumni, students, faculty, staff and family of students. That letter said: "Baylor students deserve more than mere assurances by administration officials that the university is doing its part. Accordingly, we respectfully insist that the University promptly take action to improve its responses to sexual assault - and publicly state what those will be. This is about more than compliance with the university's regulatory obligations."
Baylor alumna Laura Seay, now assistant professor of government at Colby College in Maine, said Starr's letter is "disappointing" and "doesn't tell us anything we don't already know."
She said the university is hiding behind privacy laws in not addressing the issue candidly.
"I think the pattern is undermining the identity that we're distinctively a Christian university," Seay said of Baylor.