Publisher Description
Written by ESPN investigative reporters Violated narrates the sexual abuse by members of Baylor’s football team and the university’s attempt to silence the victims. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to RAINN to help fight sexual abuse.
Throughout its history, Baylor University has presented itself as something special: As the world’s largest Baptist university, it was unabashedly Christian. It condemned any sex outside of marriage, and drinking alcohol was grounds for dismissal. Students weren’t even allowed to dance on campus until 1996.
During the last several years, however, Baylor officials were hiding a dark secret: Female students were being sexually assaulted at an alarming rate. Baylor administrators did very little to help victims, and their assailants rarely faced discipline for their abhorrent behavior.
Finally, after a pair of high-profile criminal cases involving football players, an independent examination of Baylor’s handling of allegations of sexual assault led to sweeping changes, including the unprecedented ouster of its president, athletics director, and popular, highly successful football coach.
For several years, campuses and sports teams across the country have been plagued with accusations of sexual violence, and they’ve been criticized for how they responded to the students involved. But Baylor stands out. A culture reigned in which people believed that any type of sex, especially violent non-consensual sex, simply “doesn’t happen here.” Yet it was happening. Many people within Baylor’s leadership knew about it. And they chose not to act.
Paula Lavigne and Mark Schlabach weave together the complex – and at times contradictory – narrative of how a university and football program ascending in national prominence came crashing down amidst the stories of woman after woman coming forward describing their assaults, and a university system they found indifferent to their pain.
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ESPN reporters Lavigne and Schlabach spare no detail in this shocking account of rampant sexual violence at one of America’s most revered religious universities. Between 2011 and 2015, there were 125 reports of sexual assault at Baylor University in Waco, Tex., according to the school’s legal office, though other school officials suggest the number of assaults was much higher. In that period, 17 women reported allegations of sexual assault or domestic violence involving 19 Baylor University football players. Using extensive research, including interviews with victims, coaches, players, and university officials, Lavigne and Schlabach chronicle the ways the football program fueled a hostile and abusive environment toward women and the school’s epic failure to address it. The damning account is made all the more horrific by graphic descriptions of the abuse-including multiple gang rapes-and the authors show how the school’s administrators, who refused to believe that a school with such deep Christian roots could foster an environment for sexual assault, built a “doesn’t happen here” culture that resulted in both implicit and explicit victim blaming among campus officials. In one instance, a student had to recount her sexual assault to 27 people before she was allowed to switch majors to avoid encountering her alleged attacker. This is a comprehensive and disturbing account of a particularly stark example of an epidemic facing American universities. (Aug.)—Publishers Weekly
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