‘Baylor way is to look the other way’
WACO, Texas (KWTX) – An attorney representing a woman suing Baylor University after a former football player physically assaulted her three times told jurors Monday that “the Baylor way is to look the other way.”
Testimony in Dolores Lozano’s Title IX and negligence lawsuit against Baylor, former football coach Art Briles and former athletic director Ian McCaw kicked off Monday in Waco’s federal court.
Zeke Fortenberry, one of Lozano’s attorneys, began his opening statements to the jury of five women and three men by saying, “In Texas, football is king, and in college football, there’s big money. Baylor University knows that.”
Lozano filed her lawsuit in 2016 following scathing findings of fundamental failures in the way the Baptist university handled claims of sexual assault, gender discrimination and related cases by the Pepper Hamilton law firm. Baylor hired the Philadelphia-based law firm to investigate how Baylor handled those claims in the wake of a sexual assault scandal that garnered national headlines because it involved a number of Baylor football players.
“On the outside, everything seemed to be going well,” Fortenberry said, noting Baylor’s back-to-back Big 12 championships under Briles in 2013 and 2014.
Briles and McCaw did not attend Friday’s jury selection process and were not in court again on Monday. Both men are expected to testify in court on Thursday, officials said.
Lozano is not asserting Title IX claims against Briles, who was fired in the wake of the scandal, or McCaw, who was sanctioned by the Baylor Board of Regents and resigned shortly thereafter to take a similar job at Liberty University in Virginia.
Fortenberry told the jury that Lozano dated Baylor running back Devin Chafin, and said the two had a tumultuous, 18-month relationship. She reported he assaulted her on three occasions in March and April 2014, including not long after she had an abortion.
Former Baylor University Football Team Running Back Devin Chafin.(KWTX ARCHIVES)
“The abortion is something Dolores lives with and deals with every day,” Fortenberry told jurors.
Sticking to his initial theme, Fortenberry said Lozano and her mother reported the assaults to various Baylor officials, whom he claimed did nothing.
“They stuck to what they had always been doing because football was king. The Baylor way was to look the other way,” he said. “This had been going on for years. Dolores was just the next woman in line to suffer these abuses.”
Fortenberry charged that Baylor officials created a systemic culture of giving athletes preferential treatment, even in the wake of reports of sexual assaults and gang rapes by football players. The university ignored federal requirements to deal with such allegations, exhibited “victim shaming” in some instances and displayed a “conscious disregard” for victims who made claims against football players, he claimed.
Baylor attorney Julie Springer countered in her opening remarks that there is no questions that Baylor officials mishandled claims by some sexual assault and sexual harassment victims. However, she said Baylor has accepted responsibility for its actions, publicly apologized and has implemented 105 improvements to alleviate the situation as suggested by the Pepper Hamilton investigation.
She said Lozano’s case is a far cry from those of 15 former students who recently settled Title IX lawsuits with Baylor after reporting they were sexually assaulted while students.
“This case is not one of the cases in the Pepper Hamilton report,” she said.
She said Chafin lost his grandfather and grandmother, was upset and struggling academically at Baylor. University officials, who knew of their relationship, asked Lozano to help tutor him. It was not the school’s fault that Chafin assaulted her, Springer said, adding that Lozano was offered counseling and other resources and was asked if she wanted to seek police involvement.
She said Lozano said she didn’t want to get Chafin in trouble and declined to seek university services, did not file a statement and did not seek a “no-contact” order against Chafin.
“Baylor didn’t look the other way,” Springer said. “She chose not to pursue the resources offered to her. She was told to stay away from him, offered a protective order, and she chose to continue a relationship with him. Whatever happened between them was not Baylor’s fault.”
Springer warned the jury not to be disturbed if Baylor, Briles and McCaw don’t “see eye-to-eye” in their defenses of the lawsuit.
“This is about Dolores Lozano and Devin Chafin and what happened between the two of them,” she said.
Reid Simpson, one of the attorneys who represents Briles, said Briles was not aware of the assaults reported by Lozano until 2016, adding that her case has nothing to do with the findings in the Pepper Hamilton report.
Tom Brandt, one of McCaw’s attorneys, told jurors that there is “zero evidence” that McCaw caused Chafin to assault Lozano. Once he learned of the assaults, he took appropriate steps to make sure Lozano was offered the resources she needed, including medical care, and asked if she had notified police.
In opening testimony, Cary Gray, a Houston attorney who served on the Baylor Board of Regents from 2012 to 2021, said the regents were shocked when they heard the findings from the Pepper Hamilton report. He said he stands by his vote to fire Briles, demote former Baylor president Ken Starr and to sanction McCaw. He said if he had it to do over, he probably would vote to fire McCaw, too.
“It was beyond,” Gray said, pausing for words. “It’s really hard to describe how horrible it was.”
He said the board met with Briles after the Pepper Hamilton report came out. Briles told members that he had developed a delegation system in which he allowed his coaches to handle situations that arose and he normally was the last to know everything instead of being the first to know.
“We said, ‘Coach, we’ve heard some really bad things, sexual assaults, burglaries, drugs. What would you do if you were in our shoes?’” Gray said.
He said Briles became emotional, started crying and said, “I’ll do what you want me to do. Tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it.”
Under cross-examination from Springer, Gray said he hadn’t heard about Lozano’s complaints until after she filed the lawsuit. He said he was not aware of Briles, McCaw or anyone at Baylor who discouraged Lozano from reporting the physical assaults.
Plaintiff’s testimony will resume Tuesday morning.
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