Fired Baylor football coach Art Briles claims disloyalty by school regents during Title IX trial

WACO, Texas (CN) — Baylor University’s former head football coach Art Briles told jurors Thursday how emotional he became when he was abruptly fired in 2016, while his former boss accused regents of scapegoating the football team for years of school-wide failures to address abuse and sexual violence against women.

Dolores Lozano, of Houston, sued Baylor, Briles and former athletic director Ian McCaw in federal court for negligence and sex discrimination under Title IX, claiming she was beaten three times by running back Devin Chafin in March and April 2014 during her senior year and that the school’s deliberate indifference to her reports led to the additional beatings.

Lozano’s story, along with several other female student's stories of rape and abuse, surfaced in 2016, resulting in Baylor regents ordering an independent investigation by the law firm Pepper Hamilton, which concluded administrators discouraged students from reporting abuse and, in one case, even retaliated against one student.

Sporting shaggy hair and a goatee, Briles testified how three regents called him after Pepper Hamilton presented them with the investigation’s findings. Briles did not attend the presentation.

“He told me, ‘I let you down, coach. They are going to fire you,’” Briles said. “They are just going to fire me and not tell me why?”

Briles described a subsequent meeting he had with Baylor administrators and regents where he was informed of his suspension with intent to terminate. Former regent J. Cary Gray testified Monday the regents were unable to fire the coach outright due to the parameters of his employment contract. Briles said he felt the board was being disloyal to him, that he had given all his loyalty to them.

“It was not pleasant from my point of view,” Briles said. “I became emotional and about four board members came over and put hands on me to start praying.”

Briles inherited a football team that went 3-9 when he was hired after the 2007 season — the Bears failed to win any Big 12 Conference games that season. He ultimately led Baylor to back-to-back conference championships in 2013 and 2014. He has claimed he did not find out about Lozano’s assault claims until 2016.

Also testifying Thursday, former athletic director Ian McCaw told jurors the coach was being unfairly scapegoated by Baylor regents after years of failed responses to assault and sexual violence complaints.

McCaw said he resigned out of disappointment over Briles being singled out for the scandal.  McCaw quit after he was sanctioned and put on probation, while Ken Starr was demoted as school president. Starr later resigned as Baylor chancellor and as a law school professor.

McCaw recalled being told by former regent Richard Willis that Briles “would take the fall” after Pepper Hamilton’s presentation. He described how Baylor’s Title IX coordinator had identified over 400 possible complaints to the office in the years immediately before the investigation, complaints that involved both students and non-students and assaults, both on-campus and off.

“Baylor had a wide-ranging problem with interpersonal violence and sex assault,” McCaw said. “The Board of Regents wanted to blame it all on one program and on one man: Art Briles.”

McCaw’s testimony echoed accusations he made in a 2018 deposition in a separate lawsuit that ten women filed against Baylor, saying at the time he was “disgusted” with the regents’ alleged racism. McCaw accused the school of hatching “an elaborate plan to essentially scapegoat black football players and the football program for being responsible for what was a decades-long, university-wide sexual assault scandal.”

Lozano’s attorney, Zeke Fortenberry of Dallas, said during opening statements on Monday that coaches failed to reprimand players after knowing “not only of rapes, but of gang rapes.”

McCaw told jurors he first heard about an alleged assault between Chafin and Lozano in April 2014 from associate athletic director Nancy Post. He said Post reported Lozano had sought out counseling and medical attention, and would file a report with Waco police. Baylor’s attorneys have argued this shows the procedures in place were correctly followed by administrators and there was not deliberate indifference or negligence.

Lozano is claiming Baylor acrobatics and tumbling team head coach LaPrise Harris-Williams asked her about her bruises after one of the alleged assaults. Lozano says Harris-Williams reported the assault to Post, who Lozano claims replied “being involved with incidents like Lozano’s were not [Harris-Williams’] responsibility.”

Chafin, whose deposition testimony was played in court on Wednesday and Thursday, will not appear in court in person as a witness. He has steadfastly denied assaulting Lozano in any of the three incidents, claiming he grabbed her arms as she was hitting him. Lozano claims that at the first confrontation in March 2014 at Chafin’s apartment, he allegedly kicked her on the floor of a closet and strangled her into unconsciousness after she aborted a pregnancy.

“We both cried and got very emotion, then she blamed me,” Chafin said in the deposition. “I went to leave my room and she wouldn’t let me. We argued, she hit me and scratched me several times. I did not hit her, I only acted in self-defense.”

Chafin was then shown images Lozano took of her bruises, and he denied that he caused then.

Defense attorneys have highlighted other complaints Lozano made as a student, as well as other litigation she has filed. In 2018, Lozano sued the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County over a collision with a bus in Houston.

Lozano also filed a lawsuit in 2022 against the Harris County Democratic Party to reject a rival political candidate’s signature petition. Lozano ran for public office last year in Harris County and was elected as Justice of the Peace for Precinct 2, Place 2. A Democrat, Lozano’s first term runs to 2027.

While Lozano was at Baylor, she complained to campus police about a roommate and complained to Judicial Affairs about a basketball player. She also made allegations of cyberbullying regarding an unspecified viral social media message, according to the defense.

Follow @davejourno

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