Liberty University announced the hiring of athletic director Ian McCaw, who resigned from the same position at Baylor amid the school’s sexual assault scandal.
Jerry Falwell Jr. on Liberty hiring the AD who was at Baylor during scandal: ‘Fits perfectly’
Poorly worded.
Liberty University
Liberty President Jerry Falwell Jr.’s quote in the school statement:
“Ian’s success really speaks for itself,” Falwell said. “You look at what Baylor was able to do during his tenure, it fits perfectly with where we see our sports programs going. This is an exciting time for us.”
The “success” Falwell refers to includes BU’s new football stadium, bowl wins, and Big 12 titles.
McCaw resigned shortly after he was “sanctioned and placed on probation” in May, according to Baylor, though the school didn’t elaborate.
The ongoing scandal led to Art Briles’ firing in that month and the Department of Education later beginning a Title IX investigation.
It’s clear this was a school-wide issue, albeit one that involved a lot of football players.
Earlier this month, Baylor’s former Title IX coordinator, Patty Crawford, resigned from the school and alleged that, before and after the Pepper Hamilton probe, university officials impeded her efforts to tackle what she said was a campuswide issue not isolated to football.
In response to those arguments, [Baylor regent J. Cary] Gray said, “football is just a fraction, but it is a bad fraction.”
Football players were involved in 10.4% of Title IX-reported incidents in the four-year period ending in 2014-15, Baylor said. The U.S. Department of Education said last week it is investigating Ms. Crawford’s complaint.
Liberty, a Division I private institution, has been attempting to make the jump from FCS to top-level FBS in football.
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