In spring 2016, it seemed publicly as though Baylor officials were responding to one sexual assault incident after another. Behind the scenes, attorneys from the Philadelphia law firm Pepper Hamilton, which had been hired by Baylor to investigate the university's response to allegations of sexual assault by students, were sharing details of their investigation with the regents' three-member special committee overseeing the investigation-and it wasn't looking good.
Over the previous several months, regents had been shocked by allegations of gang rapes and the sheer number of incidents. Woman after woman said she'd told someone but nothing happened. One of the most worrisome issues-the one that led the regents to hire Pepper Hamilton-was whether anyone at Baylor knew about former Bears football player Sam Ukwuachu abusing his girlfriend at Boise State before he came to Waco, Texas.