The sexual assault scandal involving the Baylor University football team not only hurt the image of Baylor, but also the Big 12 Conference as a whole. Now, the Big 12 is trying to repair its image through education.
While the Big 12 wasn’t directly involved in the sexual assault scandal that went on at Baylor in that it allowed it to happen, the conference was still hurt when the scandal erupted into the public eye. With the scandal now in the rearview mirror, Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby wants to use it as a teaching lesson.
Commissioner Bowlsby talks about how the @Big12Conference hopes to progress the conversation abt violence against women on college campuses. pic.twitter.com/yOSH7A2Znw
— Big 12 Digital (@Big12DN) September 29, 2016
The gist of Bowlsby’s statement is that the Big 12 wants to move forward discussions within the conference about how to stop violence against women on college campuses.
“I hope to have a much broader discussion about it,” Commissioner Bowlsby said. “This is a national issue and it’s certainly an issue on our 10 campuses, but it is everywhere else throughout the country.”
The Big 12 isn’t the only conference either that got rocked by a sexual assault scandal. Stanford University banned the consumption of hard alcohol at parties after the sexual assault and rape trail involving swimmer Brock Turner.
While both cases involved Stanford and Baylor were horrific and bad, Baylor’s scandal did drag on for much longer and resulted in more firings than Stanford.
“It’s not appropriate to just talk about it and then move on as if you’ve done something significant,” Bowlsby said. “I think this needs to be a catalyst for others to talk about it and for institutions to look at their policies and look at their programs and look at their structure and make sure there aren’t impediments to victims coming forward.”
This is a big step in the right direction for the Big 12 after the events at Baylor. With the Big 12 being one of the five major conferences, it needed to clean up its image and this is certainly a big move forward towards doing so.
