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Talbot: In light of Baylor scandal, Kingsbury lets university make decision

NICHOLAS TALBOT

Matt Ruhle wants to move forward.

But, unlike most coaches he wants to acknowledge the problems in Baylor’s past, too.

“If we don’t talk about and we don’t learn from it, then what was the point of it,” the new Bears coach said Tuesday at Big 12 media days at The Star in Frisco. “… This issue of sexual assault and gender violence, this isn’t a Baylor issue; this isn’t a college football issue. It’s everywhere. It’s a higher education issue.”

Rhule, 42, was hired by Baylor in December to succeed interim coach Jim Grobe, who directed the Bears in 2016 after Art Briles was fired last May. Over the past two years, a dozen women filed lawsuits claiming the university mishandled or ignored rape allegations against Briles’ players and other students.

“That which we don’t acknowledge, we’re doomed to repeat, right?” Rhule said. “At the end of the day, I don’t know everything that happened, but I just know something happened that was wrong. We’re not running from the past, but rather we’re learning from it.”

Formerly the head coach at Temple, Rhule said he and other leaders at Baylor want the university to serve as a national leader in preventing sexual assault and raising awareness.

Rhule said he will evaluate those who violate Baylor’s new code of misconduct on a case-by-case basis.

Rhule said having a serious misconduct policy might eliminate the decision to give players a second chance because there are some violations he and the university couldn’t forgive.

“I believe in second chances, except for certain things. When you commit some acts, you forfeit your right to play for me. You can play for someone else, but not for me,” he said. “(Sexual assault) is at the forefront and when you are a college athlete you have to know you are going to be held to a standard and you better meet it, day in and day out.”

At last year’s Big 12 media days, Texas Tech coach Kliff Kingsbury said he was “taking a second look” at how things operate in Lubbock after seeing Baylor’s situation unfold.

“You’re not with them 24 hours a day, so you talk about accountability with your own players and holding each other to that,” Kingsbury said last July, a month after a woman told officials one of his players allegedly sexually assaulted her and six months before those allegations became public. “But, yeah, it definitely, I think, made every coach in America take a step back and say, ‘OK, what can we do better in that area?’ ”

A year later, it doesn’t look like Kingsbury has tried or done much to improve that landscape.

Kingsbury said Monday the football team is finalizing a way to bring Jett Duffey back into the fold. The backup quarterback was suspended from the university for two semesters after being found responsible for two counts of sexual misconduct. A three-person Texas Tech Title IX panel concluded Duffey had non-consensual intercourse with a woman on April 16, 2016, according to a disposition letter obtained by A-JMedia.

“It was handled through the university, through their process and the code of conduct,” Kingsbury said this week. “We took a lot of factors into account when the athletic department decided on reinstatement. There are lot of facts we know that the public doesn’t know and all of that went into the athletic department’s decision.”

Kingsbury added that, “We read everything that we have been given,” and that second chances are given on “a case-by-case basis on what you know about the incident and there are a ton of factors that go into each case.”

Of course, I have read hundreds of pages about the incident, too — the affidavits, the Title IX transcripts and Duffey’s own graphic description of what happened, some of which were detailed in a lawsuit he filed, and later dropped, against Tech.

And it is easy to see why the the university’s Title IX hearing panel suspended the quarterback. Yes, Title IX hearings are different than the criminal court system since students are not considered “guilty” or “not guilty” of a crime, but rather “responsible” or “not responsible” for a policy violation.

That standard made it easier for the university to suspend Duffey than it did to prosecute him. The panel noted, “(Duffey’s) behavior, while a serious violation of university policy, was neither aggravated by the use of force,” and the woman’s intoxication did not appear to be induced by him.

After the Title IX hearing, an appeal and suspension, Duffey filed a civil suit against the university on Nov. 30, accusing Tech of violating his due process rights and marking the first time Tech was sued by a person found responsible of a Title IX violation. The lawsuit was dismissed March 3 at Duffey’s request.

Kingsbury can do whatever he wants. It’s his program, but the details in the transcripts and Duffey suing the university should be enough to tell him to transfer — to find a new start somewhere else where he would be free from the scandal that has ensued.

Second chances are hard to come by in life and there is no real reason Duffey should have gotten one from Tech. Kingsbury can say he is just following the university’s decision.

But, what he is really doing is taking the easy way out by relying on the university to make the tough choice of suspending Duffey and then letting him back onto campus — and the football field — in late August.

Some might argue Tech didn’t try to hide what happened like Baylor did.

But, Tech did not make it easy to get the records involved in Duffey’s Title IX ruling. They fought it tooth and nail, taking the disposition letter to the Texas Attorney General and then trying to get the attention of the Department of Education in order to not disclose it was Duffey who sued the university using the pseudonym John Doe.

Tech only released the information — which otherwise is easily obtained within a few days — at the request of A-J Media’s attorney — more than 10 days after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton ordered the university to do so.

What really happened that night? Only two people really know, and they both had two extremely different recollections of what happened the night of April 16, 2016.

But once you read the Title IX transcripts and affidavits from six other Tech football players, it doesn’t look good for anyone involved.

Some may think Duffey’s paid for what might or might not have happened that night with his suspension. And maybe he has. Maybe he overpaid.

Regardless, the alleged victim may never get over what she says happened that night.

And no matter what Duffey does on the football field, no matter how good he is — Heisman Trophy, All-American or NFL quarterback — from this point forward, he will always be dogged by the allegations that followed.

Duffey’s attorney, Chuck Lanehart, said, “He’s been devastated by this.” I don’t doubt he has. This isn’t an ideal situation for anyone involved.

Except, of course, Kingsbury. Instead of being proactive, the Tech coach got off without making a real decision. He let someone else — the university — make it for him.

His inaction doesn’t push the issue of sexual assault on college campuses forward. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really do anything at all.

And that’s the problem.