To the Editor:
There is a major disconnect between the heading of your news posting — “‘Fundamental Failure’ on Sexual Assaults Brings Sweeping Change at Baylor” (The Chronicle, May 27) — and the content of the article. Was the president terminated for his role in the debacle? No. You wrote: “He is also expected to remain a tenured member of the law-school faculty and earn the full base salary that he is currently paid. Baylor’s 2014 report to the IRS lists that amount as $611,654.”
The caption to the photo at the top of the page reads: “Kenneth W. Starr will no longer serve as Baylor’s president, though he will stay on as chancellor and remain a professor of law. His demotion was part of a series of personnel and policy changes announced by the regents on Thursday in response to an outside firm’s scathing examination of the university’s handling of sexual-violence reports.” Although long overdue, none of these strike me as a “sweeping change.”
Was the athletic director fired? Apparently not.
Was the way in which allegations of misconduct were originally suppressed consistent with the Mission Statement of Baylor: “The mission of Baylor University is to educate men and women for worldwide leadership and service by integrating academic excellence and Christian commitment within a caring community”? Obviously not.
Did the larger Baylor community react with condemnation of what has happened? Apparently not, because you include in the same posting a link to a related article with the title: “With Ken Starr’s Future in Doubt, Baylor Alumni Come to His Defense.”
What kind of change did you describe happening? Let’s see: “The business operations of the athletics department will now be overseen by the university’s chief operating officer, and the university will seek to ensure that athletes are not given any preferential treatment in student-conduct proceedings.” The fact that this may be a cosmetic change was suggested in the subsequent paragraph: “Putting the athletics department under the control of the university’s main administrators may be helpful, Mr. Ridpath said, or it may turn out to be a ‘paper drill.’”
Perhaps the only sweeping change is captured in this sentence: “But Baylor’s actions represent an attempt to keep nothing hidden.” Now, that would be a sweeping change. I have no objection to the way you covered the news of the “systems failure” that occurred at Baylor. But, as a long-term reader, I felt that the editorializing inherent in the construction of the heading that introduced this coverage did not meet the standards of what I expect from The Chronicle.
George Bodner
Arthur E. Kelly Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, Education and Engineering
Purdue University