Thursday, June 2, 2016

Sorry about, you know, that

So Art Briles is the latest to come clean about that apparent serial sexual assault deal they had going on at Baylor University (paging "Law&Order: SVU" ... paging "Law&Order: SVU" ...). Except he didn't come clean.

No surprise there. Non-specific regret, it seems, is all the rage these days down in Waco.

It started with that Board of Regents report that began the cascade of resignations/demotions/demotions-that-became-resignations, and that was itself a masterpiece of non-specificity. Bad stuff happened, the report reported, but apparently no one was to blame for any of it. Names were not named. Responsible parties were not identified. The bad stuff that happened just happened organically, apparently, without anyone's actions or inactions either setting it in motion or contributing to it.

The report reported that at least one alleged victim was intimidated by university officials into remaining silent, but it didn't say who did the intimidating or how it happened. Who signed off on letting football staff members interview alleged victims? Who looked the other way when, how and under whose orders?

Beats them. But, you know, they're all sorry, real sorry.

Ousted BU president Ken Starr says he's real sorry, even as he declares women on the BU campus were safe, perfectly safe, because none of the alleged assaults happened on campus (even though a whole pile of them did). And now Briles, the deposed football coach, says he's real sorry, too, even though he can't get into any specifics about what exactly he's sorry about.

He is, he said in a statement, "contractually obligated to remain silent".

Which he probably is. And which everyone else probably is. And which probably was a factor in the maddening non-revelatory revelations included in the regents'  report.

Here's the thing about that: Without details, without specifics, everything -- from the report to the various apologies -- comes off smelling more like a coverup than a university trying to get right with God and the law.  Lots of culpa, no mea.

And no reason to believe anything has changed, no matter how much housecleaning Baylor does.

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