Baylor faces accusations of ignoring sex assault victims
He disappeared after handing Tanya her shirt back. Dazed, Tanya made her way back into the party, found her friends, and told one of them, "I think I was just raped."
Once at the hospital, in Waco, Texas, Tanya recounted for Waco police and a nurse what had happened: A Baylor University football player named Tevin Elliott had raped her. The defensive end would end up arrested by Waco police, charged with sexually assaulting Tanya, kicked off the football team and expelled.
Days later, Tanya said she went to Baylor's campus police department, asking officers if there was anything they could do for her, because she'd been assaulted by a fellow student. She didn't ask for anything specific, but she thought maybe a campus escort or security could be provided, because Elliott remained in Waco.
There is nothing we can do, because the assault happened off campus.
A few days later, she said she contacted Baylor's student health center, seeking counseling.
There is no one who can see you now. You could, though, put your name on a waiting list. Maybe you should see someone off campus.
With final exams coming up and Tanya's schoolwork already beginning to suffer, her mother called Baylor's academic services group for assistance.
Sorry. No resources are available. Even "if a plane falls on your daughter, there's nothing we can do to help you."
Tanya, a Baylor freshman at the time, was one of five women who reported to police that they were either raped or assaulted -- in incidents from October 2009 to April 2012 -- by Elliott, who was convicted on two counts of sexual assault in January 2014 for the incident involving Tanya.
who is serving a 20-year sentence at a prison in West Texas, and he said that none of his coaches mentioned the incident to him, and he received no punishment.
"I don't even know if they knew," he said. "I just kept playing ball, kept going to school."
Elliott denied all of the assaults, saying that any sex he had with the women was consensual.
"You know college athletes go through this all the time. ... At the end of the day, the finger is going to be pointed at us because we are the big athletes," he said. "We're sitting on a pedestal, they trying to make us look bad, but at the end of the day, we could be innocent. It's like we are guilty until proven innocent."
Elliott and his family are trying to mount an appeal, alleging that apartment security video that could clear him of Tanya's rape is mysteriously missing and that jurors ignored evidence.
until it went to trial last August. During that time, Ukwuachu did not play, but he remained on the team and enrolled in school.
Kim said she heard about the trial on the news.
"And I was like, 'Are you kidding me?' It's like they didn't take the Tevin thing seriously. What, did we not cry out enough for something to be done? I mean, was that not enough for you to listen to us?"
In the Ukwuachu case, the university had actually conducted a Title IX investigation. It cleared him. Two months before Ukwuachu's trial, the football team's defensive coordinator, Phil Bennett, told a crowd at a luncheon that he expected Ukwuachu to play in the 2015 season.
Ukwuachu, through his attorney, declined a request for an interview with Outside the Lines. He issued a lengthy statement in which he said he was falsely accused and that he did not receive a fair trial. He said his accuser lied repeatedly about what had happened, and prosecutors presented false evidence during his trial.
"Do not criticize Baylor University or my former coaches," he wrote. "A Baylor University investigation cleared me and allowed me to graduate because they caught my accuser in multiple lies pertaining to the events that happened the night of the alleged incident as well as our previous encounter during their investigation."
LaBorde, the McLennan County assistant district attorney, said Baylor's investigation -- which was not provided to Outside the Lines -- faulted the soccer player for having been friends with Ukwuachu and having twice gone over to his apartment before the night on which she reported the rape.
"I have no explanation for [Baylor's lack of action] other than it's just some 1940s mentality of how women should behave," she said. "If they're sitting around and waiting for a victim who has been pulled off the jogging path and raped by a stranger wearing a trench coat, they're going to be waiting for a long time."
She said Baylor officials didn't request certain records or interview sources who might have provided better evidence.
Crawford, the school's Title IX coordinator, said she couldn't talk about the Ukwuachu investigation.
"I can't speculate from the past. I wasn't in the room. I wasn't there. I do know that, in the world of Title IX ... we don't have certain powers that criminal process and a justice process has," she said.
Ukwuachu's accuser was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder following the encounter. She had been struggling to recover from a knee injury suffered while playing soccer when Baylor reduced her athletic scholarship. She ultimately transferred to another university.
"She's the one that has to leave, and he remains," LaBorde said. "Somehow they have the money to keep him, even though he's under indictment. They don't have the money to keep her."
Crawford said the school has since taken steps to make sure students get the help they need -- regardless of the outcome of any judicial hearing.
"Any time a man or woman comes forward and says, 'Hey, this has happened to me,' we create a plan together. And I say, 'I'm going to navigate the resources. What do you need?' " she said. "We don't want them to have to tell 10 people that maybe they were sexually assaulted. That just can retrigger a trauma and can cause a lot of problems, especially during exams or any time during an academic career."
She said more than 6,000 faculty, staff, residence hall leaders and athletes have been trained, and Baylor has Title IX "case managers" who work comprehensively with each student.
"The real essence of Title IX is student success. And it's hard to be successful when you don't feel safe," Crawford said.
Crawford described having overhauled the Title IX system to get all departments, including athletics, involved in preventing and addressing sexual assault allegations so everyone will know what to do if they're made aware of an incident of sexual violence.
Sam Ukwuachu was convicted of sexually assaulting a fellow Baylor athlete in 2013. Jerry Larson/Waco Tribune-Herald/AP Photo
Tanya said she and her mother had never heard of Title IX until they were contacted by Outside the Lines for this story. They declined to say whether they were considering legal action against Baylor.
"Everybody knew what was going on, but nobody helped us," Tanya's mother said. "No one reached out to us, not a phone call, not a letter, nothing."
She said she has heard the university's pledge to do better, but she doesn't buy it.
"Their football team is their priority.The money that comes to them is their priority," she said. "You cannot serve two masters.Theirs is money.They don't care about their students.They don't care about the victims."
Her daughter has a similar, cynical view.
"Do I think the administration is sincere? No. Because then they would have acted differently in Sam's [Ukwuachu's] case," she said. "I don't think that they are sincere."
Tanya stayed at Baylor one year after her rape, but she said she wasn't able to focus on her work, and her grades plummeted. She lost her academic scholarship and was put on academic probation.
In spring 2013, Tanya's mother said she called academic services one last time. She told them what happened to her daughter and asked for help. She said she wasgiven exit forms for Tanya to sign.
Tanya dropped out of Baylor, moved home, gave up her dream of becoming a nurse, and enrolled in a local community college.
"Baylor has deceived people like me and like other victims of assault. Because they told us that they would represent something good and something righteous," Tanya said. "And in every way, they have failed to do so."
- Paula LavigneESPN Staff Writer
He disappeared after handing Tanya her shirt back. Dazed, Tanya made her way back into the party, found her friends, and told one of them, "I think I was just raped."
Once at the hospital, in Waco, Texas, Tanya recounted for Waco police and a nurse what had happened: A Baylor University football player named Tevin Elliott had raped her. The defensive end would end up arrested by Waco police, charged with sexually assaulting Tanya, kicked off the football team and expelled.
Days later, Tanya said she went to Baylor's campus police department, asking officers if there was anything they could do for her, because she'd been assaulted by a fellow student. She didn't ask for anything specific, but she thought maybe a campus escort or security could be provided, because Elliott remained in Waco.
There is nothing we can do, because the assault happened off campus.
A few days later, she said she contacted Baylor's student health center, seeking counseling.
There is no one who can see you now. You could, though, put your name on a waiting list. Maybe you should see someone off campus.
With final exams coming up and Tanya's schoolwork already beginning to suffer, her mother called Baylor's academic services group for assistance.
Sorry. No resources are available. Even "if a plane falls on your daughter, there's nothing we can do to help you."
Tanya, a Baylor freshman at the time, was one of five women who reported to police that they were either raped or assaulted -- in incidents from October 2009 to April 2012 -- by Elliott, who was convicted on two counts of sexual assault in January 2014 for the incident involving Tanya.
who is serving a 20-year sentence at a prison in West Texas, and he said that none of his coaches mentioned the incident to him, and he received no punishment.
"I don't even know if they knew," he said. "I just kept playing ball, kept going to school."
Elliott denied all of the assaults, saying that any sex he had with the women was consensual.
"You know college athletes go through this all the time. ... At the end of the day, the finger is going to be pointed at us because we are the big athletes," he said. "We're sitting on a pedestal, they trying to make us look bad, but at the end of the day, we could be innocent. It's like we are guilty until proven innocent."
Elliott and his family are trying to mount an appeal, alleging that apartment security video that could clear him of Tanya's rape is mysteriously missing and that jurors ignored evidence.
until it went to trial last August. During that time, Ukwuachu did not play, but he remained on the team and enrolled in school.
Kim said she heard about the trial on the news.
"And I was like, 'Are you kidding me?' It's like they didn't take the Tevin thing seriously. What, did we not cry out enough for something to be done? I mean, was that not enough for you to listen to us?"
In the Ukwuachu case, the university had actually conducted a Title IX investigation. It cleared him. Two months before Ukwuachu's trial, the football team's defensive coordinator, Phil Bennett, told a crowd at a luncheon that he expected Ukwuachu to play in the 2015 season.
Ukwuachu, through his attorney, declined a request for an interview with Outside the Lines. He issued a lengthy statement in which he said he was falsely accused and that he did not receive a fair trial. He said his accuser lied repeatedly about what had happened, and prosecutors presented false evidence during his trial.
"Do not criticize Baylor University or my former coaches," he wrote. "A Baylor University investigation cleared me and allowed me to graduate because they caught my accuser in multiple lies pertaining to the events that happened the night of the alleged incident as well as our previous encounter during their investigation."
LaBorde, the McLennan County assistant district attorney, said Baylor's investigation -- which was not provided to Outside the Lines -- faulted the soccer player for having been friends with Ukwuachu and having twice gone over to his apartment before the night on which she reported the rape.
"I have no explanation for [Baylor's lack of action] other than it's just some 1940s mentality of how women should behave," she said. "If they're sitting around and waiting for a victim who has been pulled off the jogging path and raped by a stranger wearing a trench coat, they're going to be waiting for a long time."
She said Baylor officials didn't request certain records or interview sources who might have provided better evidence.
Crawford, the school's Title IX coordinator, said she couldn't talk about the Ukwuachu investigation.
"I can't speculate from the past. I wasn't in the room. I wasn't there. I do know that, in the world of Title IX ... we don't have certain powers that criminal process and a justice process has," she said.
Ukwuachu's accuser was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder following the encounter. She had been struggling to recover from a knee injury suffered while playing soccer when Baylor reduced her athletic scholarship. She ultimately transferred to another university.
"She's the one that has to leave, and he remains," LaBorde said. "Somehow they have the money to keep him, even though he's under indictment. They don't have the money to keep her."
Crawford said the school has since taken steps to make sure students get the help they need -- regardless of the outcome of any judicial hearing.
"Any time a man or woman comes forward and says, 'Hey, this has happened to me,' we create a plan together. And I say, 'I'm going to navigate the resources. What do you need?' " she said. "We don't want them to have to tell 10 people that maybe they were sexually assaulted. That just can retrigger a trauma and can cause a lot of problems, especially during exams or any time during an academic career."
She said more than 6,000 faculty, staff, residence hall leaders and athletes have been trained, and Baylor has Title IX "case managers" who work comprehensively with each student.
"The real essence of Title IX is student success. And it's hard to be successful when you don't feel safe," Crawford said.
Crawford described having overhauled the Title IX system to get all departments, including athletics, involved in preventing and addressing sexual assault allegations so everyone will know what to do if they're made aware of an incident of sexual violence.
Sam Ukwuachu was convicted of sexually assaulting a fellow Baylor athlete in 2013. Jerry Larson/Waco Tribune-Herald/AP Photo
Tanya said she and her mother had never heard of Title IX until they were contacted by Outside the Lines for this story. They declined to say whether they were considering legal action against Baylor.
"Everybody knew what was going on, but nobody helped us," Tanya's mother said. "No one reached out to us, not a phone call, not a letter, nothing."
She said she has heard the university's pledge to do better, but she doesn't buy it.
"Their football team is their priority.The money that comes to them is their priority," she said. "You cannot serve two masters.Theirs is money.They don't care about their students.They don't care about the victims."
Her daughter has a similar, cynical view.
"Do I think the administration is sincere? No. Because then they would have acted differently in Sam's [Ukwuachu's] case," she said. "I don't think that they are sincere."
Tanya stayed at Baylor one year after her rape, but she said she wasn't able to focus on her work, and her grades plummeted. She lost her academic scholarship and was put on academic probation.
In spring 2013, Tanya's mother said she called academic services one last time. She told them what happened to her daughter and asked for help. She said she wasgiven exit forms for Tanya to sign.
Tanya dropped out of Baylor, moved home, gave up her dream of becoming a nurse, and enrolled in a local community college.
"Baylor has deceived people like me and like other victims of assault. Because they told us that they would represent something good and something righteous," Tanya said. "And in every way, they have failed to do so."
