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Ex-Baylor staffer requests Pepper Hamilton report release (Update)
Update: Thursday, July 28 – 8:15 p.m. ET
Former Baylor employee Thomas Hill offered details of the events that led to his firing.
Hill told ESPN he was “interrogated” by Pepper Hamilton, the law firm that investigated Baylor’s handling of multiple sexual assault allegations, about an alleged rape involving a women’s volleyball player and a football player.
Hill said he told them that former volleyball coach Jim Barnes (now at Tulane) had stopped by his office and told him there had been a sexual encounter between a football player and a volleyball player. Hill said Barnes told him that it had already been reported to McCaw.
“He indicated that he had had conversations with [football coach Art] Briles prior to seeing me,” Hill said. “And he stopped by my office only to give me a pass-by FYI that he was discussing this issue with them. That was it. The issue was a potential sexual incident with a football player and a volleyball player.”
Hill said he didn’t hear many details, including the names of the two athletes or the severity of the alleged incident. From ESPN:
Hill said he never knew the name of the football player or the volleyball player, and he never knew specifically that it was a rape. “Really, he didn’t give me a lot of details,” Hill said, adding that Barnes didn’t tell him it was rape — only that it was a “sexual encounter.”
Hill said he called McCaw shortly after Barnes stopped by his office, but Hill said he did not learn any more details about the incident from that conversation. He said he didn’t remember the exact date, but thought it was around 2012. Asked how much more he learned about the incident later, he said, “Zero. That day was all.”
Hill said he was not aware of any other sexual assaults. If he was, he said he would have told his boss.
From ESPN:
He said Pepper Hamilton asked him questions about that one incident. He said he wasn’t aware of any other sexual assaults or related crimes involving football players or about any coaches or staff involved in any reports of sexual assaults.
“[Pepper Hamilton attorneys] asked me what I would do if I was aware of a rape,” he said. Hill said he told the attorneys, “I’d tell my boss. If it was the victim, I would make sure their safety is taken care of and I would then report it. Otherwise, I would take it to my boss.”
When asked why Hill didn’t try to get more details about the incident from Barnes at the time, he said, “I didn’t pry. These were private matters. And he told me what he wanted to tell me.”
In late May, Hill said he was being called in to answer follow-up questions from Pepper Hamilton. At that point, he was terminated “based on the findings of the Pepper Hamilton investigation” and given no further explanation, he said.
Original story: Thursday, July 28 – 11:53 a.m. ET
A former Baylor employee fired in the wake of the Pepper Hamilton report has reportedly requested the school make the report public via a court order.
According to ESPN, Thomas Hill has filed a petition in Dallas County, Texas, to request Baylor’s board of regents “to turn over materials related to Hill’s firing, including the Pepper Hamilton report, and to allow him to depose various regents.”
Hill was one of two Baylor staffers filed in May as the athletic department was in significant upheaval following the release of a summary of the report, which detailed the recklessness with which the Baylor athletic department handled accusations of sexual assault. He claims he was fired without explanation and wants to know why he was terminated.
“I think what’s really important about the filing is we’re going to be seeking depositions and evidence from the board of regents, including work from Pepper Hamilton,” Hill’s laywer Rogge Dunn told ESPN. “It’s a way to get to the evidence quickly, rather than from the other cases that are moving slowly.”
Hill was a former assistant athletic director for community relations and special projects with the school. He was fired along with Colin Shillinglaw, an assistant athletic director for football operations.
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“While not to the same degree as the courageous women who were victimized in this dark time in Baylor’s history, Hill is yet another – and unnecessary – victim of this controversy,” his petition reads, per ESPN.
Hill’s request also brings the existence of a written report from the Pepper Hamilton law firm back into question. When the school released the report’s findings, the public version came in the form of a 13-page summary. As others, namely the Big 12 and Baylor’s alumni assocation, have called for the release of the full report, Baylor has cited privacy reasons and that the full Pepper Hamilton report was an oral report.
While those previous requests were certainly noble and justified, Hill’s may have more weight because it comes through the court system.
The school suspended and ultimately fired coach Art Briles after the summary’s release while athletic director Ian McCaw and president and chancellor Ken Starr resigned. Baylor made a presentation to the rest of the Big 12 during media days last week detailing what it’s doing in the aftermath of the scandal and will not be sanctioned by the conference.
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