Patty Crawford, who resigned as the Title IX coordinator at Baylor University on Monday night, said Baylor “set me up to fail from the beginning” regarding the school’s handling of sexual assault cases involving its football team.
Crawford made the comments during an interview Wednesday on “CBS This Morning.” The school announced her resignation 11 minutes before midnight on Monday.
“I continued to work very hard, and the harder I worked, the more resistance I received from senior leadership,” Crawford, hired in November 2014, said on the CBS This Morning set in New York. “I increased reports by 700 percent over my time, and it became clear that that was not something that the university wanted. In July, I made it clear in writing that I had concerns and that the university was violating Title IX, and my environment got worse.”
When asked who prevented her from doing her job, Crawford answered it was “senior leadership, a group of senior leaders that were protecting the brand instead of our students.” Crawford added the school continues to fail victims of sexual assault and said she filed a complaint to the Office for Civil Rights last week.
“I never had the authority, the resources or the independence to do the job appropriately, which the Department of Education writes in its guidance for Title IX coordinators and universities,” Crawford said in the interview.
Related: Baylor Fires Football Coach Art Briles
On Monday, two women who claimed they were sexually assaulted while at Baylor joined a Title IX lawsuit against the university. The plaintiffs are known as Jane Doe 7 and Jane Doe 8 in the suit. Jane Doe 1, Jane Doe 2 and Jane Doe 3 were named in the lawsuit when it was originally filed on June 15. Three more Jane Does were added in late June, the Waco Tribune reported.
Jane Doe 7 claims two Baylor students raped her in May 2009. Jane Doe 8 claims a Baylor student sexually assaulted her in March 2015, according to the newspaper. The Jane Doe 8 case would have come under Crawford’s watch, but on Wednesday, Crawford said that she did not know about that particular case.
A source told Waco TV station KWTX that Baylor offered Crawford a $1.5 million settlement, but she declined to sign a confidentiality agreement for an additional $50,000. Crawford’s attorney, Rogge Dunn, countered with an offer of $2 million that Baylor rejected, the TV station reported.
In a statement read on CBS This Morning, Baylor said it “was surprised by the action taken by Patty Crawford given her public comments about the strong support she felt from across the University,” referring to an interview with the Waco Tribune that Crawford conducted two months ago. Baylor then added, “Her demand for one million dollars and her request to retain book and movie rights were troubling.”
Dunn, who accompanied Crawford on CBS This Morning, said Baylor was breaking Texas confidentiality law regarding its mediation with Crawford on Monday.
“It’s a desperate attempt to smear Patty,” Dunn said of Baylor’s allegation during the CBS interview. “Believe me, there is nothing I would rather tell you than what went on in that mediation, because it’s in favor of Patty. But the law says you can’t do that. We choose to follow the law, unlike Baylor University.”
The Baylor sexual assault scandal culminated May 26 when Baylor’s board of regents reported “fundamental failure” in the school’s implementation of Title IX and the Violence Against Women Act, the Waco Tribune reported. Baylor faces three Title IX lawsuits and settled with at least one sexual assault victim last year. It reached an undisclosed agreement with a former student-athlete raped by former Baylor football player Sam Ukwuachu in 2013.
As Philadelphia law firm Pepper Hamilton was completing its nine-month independent investigation in Baylor’s handling of sexual assault reports at the school, Baylor head football coach Art Briles and president Ken Starr were fired, athletic director Ian McCaw resigned and two other athletic staffers were fired.
