Do better, Bob Bowlsby. The Big 12 conference had the first day of its media days on Monday. It made for the first opportunity for commissioner Bob Bowlsby to speak in a formal setting following the sexual assault investigation that rocked Baylor's football program — one that ultimately resulted in head coach Art Briles and several other staffers being let go.
Bowlsby touched on these recent events in Waco, Tx., and he did so in quite possibly the most tone-deaf way imaginable. Below is an excerpt from Bowlsby's statements. In them, he uses a concept from an a true statistic — that the likelihood of assaults happening are increasingly higher for college women — I'll give specific data for this in a bit.
But Bowlsby uses this, and pairs it with the drug and alcohol use that is also prevalent on college campuses — and combines the two to present it in a way that deflects the blame of the sexual assault allegations away from himself and other conference and school officials. It almost sounds like he's giving an excuse for the events that have taken place within the Baylor community. Below is an excerpt from his full statements.
"But let it suffice to say as it pertains to all of our institutions, we are very committed as a group of ten schools to eradicating sexual assault on our campuses. It almost goes without saying that when you combine alcohol and drugs and raging hormones and the experiences of 18- 22 years old, it's probably unrealistic to think that these kinds of things are never going to happen. But we certainly want to make sure that from the center we do everything we can to ensure that they are minimized, if not eradicated."
The folks at Deadspin.com point out one statistically correct side of Bowlsby's remarks — that young women are indeed at a higher risk of being sexually assaulted. According to RAINN, women in college aged 18-24 are three times more likely to be sexually assaulted than the average woman. That, even though legally they aren't teens, covers for the most part the "teenagers" aspects of his words.
But drugs and alcohol? Drugs and alcohol should never be a reason to blame for why sexual assault takes place. Ever. The way Bowlsby said it here, whether he meant to or not, sounds exactly like he's trying to use "alcohol, drugs and teenagers" to try to deflect some of the blame away from Baylor, who failed to not execute Title IX the way they should have — as revealed by the Pepper Hamilton Report, which investigated the school.
While yes, it's true, there are numbers out there regarding sexual assault and alcohol — in 2012, Campus Safety Magazine cited that 43% of the sexual victimization incidents involve alcohol consumption by victims and 69% involve alcohol consumption by the perpetrator. But again: Drugs and/or alcohol is not, and should never, be used to deflect some of the blame for sexual assault.
The point here is this. Bowlsby had an opportunity to reassure young women — like myself, if I may add — and more importantly, the women of Baylor's community that he, as Big 12 commissioner, is doing everything in his power to make sure incidents of sexual assault, as he put it today are "minimized, if not eradicated." Instead of saying alcohol, drugs and horny teenagers are partially to blame for why sexual assaults happen, tell us more about what specifically you're doing to potentially eradicate these incidents. Don't try to deflect why it happened — tell us how you learned from the mistakes of what you and your subordinates did and didn't do with everything that happened, and tell us how you're going to do better in the future.
We can all do better when we're discussing why or how sexual assault happens. I was hoping a man who gets $2.3 million a year would do better today.
