Moral Blindness at Baylor; New York Times, 5/27/16

Editorial Board, New York Times; Moral Blindness at Baylor:

"Among the most intriguing — and to some people, satisfying — aspects of the sex-abuse scandal at Baylor University was the ouster of Kenneth Starr as university president. Mr. Starr was the special prosecutor who pursued President Bill Clinton’s indiscretions and moral shortcomings with almost preternatural zeal back in 1998. Now here he is, bounced from his job as president for what appears to have been his failure to pay close enough attention to serious moral problems in Baylor’s football program...

The larger point here, however, involves the special status, approaching immunity, that football was accorded at Baylor. The same scathing report by outside investigators that led to Mr. Starr’s demotion asserted that football was treated by administrators as “above the rules” of federal law when it came to the cover-up of sexual abuses and assaults by players.

The investigators described a secretive football culture built around a lucrative, nationally ranked program in which officials concealed charges of sexual abuse against players while female accusers were discouraged “in conduct that could be perceived as victim blaming.”"