After a months-long independent investigation into Baylor University’s response to allegations of physical and sexual abuse by its football players, its Board of Regents fired head football coach Art Briles and demoted president Ken Starr. Starr, who gained fame for investigating Bill Clinton’s sex scandal, later resigned as chancellor but will remain a tenured professor in Baylor’s law school. During his six-year presidency, female students complained of abuse from five football players. (Two athletes were charged and found guilty; another has been arrested.) The investigation found that administrators ignored and sometimes discouraged complaints. The Division I school and private Christian university isn’t new to sports scandals. The NCAA put Baylor’s basketball team on a five-year probation after one player murdered another in 2003 and the ensuing investigation uncovered players’ drug use and coaches’ illegal payment of athletes. David Garland, former dean and professor at Baylor’s seminary, will serve a second stint as interim president.
After hearing arguments on whether or not religious groups are required to include birth control in their employee health care coverage, the US Supreme Court asked both sides for ways employees might access free birth control through insurance without impinging on the employers’ freedom of conscience. The religious organizations included Little Sisters of the Poor, GuideStone Financial Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention, and five members of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. The Court remanded the cases back to lower ...
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Investigation: SBC Executive Committee staff saw advocates’ cries for help as a distraction from evangelism and a legal liability, stonewalling their reports and resisting calls for reform.