The Dam Truth: Sexual assault cases at Baylor should not be minimalized, dismissed

There are a lot of actions that could change the culture of Baylor University, a school riddled in sexual assault cases and cover-up claims dating back to 2012.

Actually reporting crimes instead of hiding them would be a decent start.

Hiring a Title IX coordinator and increasing overall transparency would be valid courses of action as well.

Inciting violence is not one of them. Neither is diminishing the severity of what has happened in Waco, Texas, over the past five years.

But that’s what women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey did, irresponsibly.

During the Lady Bears’ senior day ceremony after their win over Texas Tech, Mulkey told fans that if they knew parents who would not send their daughters to Baylor because of past events, to go “knock them right in the face.”

She doubled down on those statements in a postgame press conference, saying that she was tired of hearing about her school in the media because outsiders weren’t in the know.

“The problems we have at Baylor are no different than the problems at any other school in America. Period,” Mulkey said. “Move on. Find another story to write.”

She’s not entirely wrong – nearly every college campus has had sexual assault cases and it’s something every campus, I should hope, wants to eradicate.

[The Dam Truth: Oklahoma prioritized success over justice for victims of violence]

But Baylor isn’t like every other school in America, and it doesn’t take being in the know to realize that.

Saying otherwise is ignorant.

Reports have come out from numerous outlets, victims have spoken up and the Baylor administration has admitted that the school fell short in handling these cases.

Not every school has silenced the victims while shielding the accused.

Not every school lost its football coach, athletic director and chancellor in a year because they created a toxic environment where 52 acts of rape by 31 different players occurred over five years.

And encouraging people to punch others in the face when multiple women were abused and gang-raped is insensitive and reprehensible.

The victims will never be the same, and saying that everyone should just move on from one of the worst scandals in college athletics shows a serious lack of understanding of what transpired in Waco.

[The Dam Truth: Obama’s legacy of empowering female athletes must not be left behind]

Mulkey, who is one of the leaders and most recognizable figures in the sport, apologized days later saying she used a poor analogy.

But it’s bigger than just a poor analogy.

Her words matter, and her dismissiveness and defensiveness was evident in her tone.

I get it – she loves the university, where she’s been coaching since 2000, and obviously wants talented five-star recruits to continue playing for Baylor and competing for national championships.

But how can anyone feel safe in Waco if you’re dismissing what has happened so vehemently?

How can players, or anyone on campus, feel comfortable coming to figures like Mulkey if they face any such problems in the future?

What kind of message is she sending to her players and fans – that we shouldn’t talk about sexual assault at our school because it happens everywhere?

The hard truth is that the best way to solve this issue is to continue talking about it and raising awareness, even if it is infuriating for schools to see their names dragged through headlines.

Baylor swept things under the rug for the past five years and look what it ended up with: a tarnished reputation, multiple lawsuits alleging Title IX violations against them and innocent coaches and players left to make sense of it all and pick up the pieces.