{"id":178756,"date":"2018-08-28T18:08:00","date_gmt":"2018-08-28T23:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2018\/08\/28\/ken-starr-is-pond-scum\/"},"modified":"2018-08-28T18:08:00","modified_gmt":"2018-08-28T23:08:00","slug":"ken-starr-is-pond-scum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2018\/08\/28\/ken-starr-is-pond-scum\/","title":{"rendered":"Ken Starr is Pond Scum"},"content":{"rendered":"

While he was trying to coverup sexual assaults by athletes at Baylor, he planted a mole to spy on sexual survivor support groups<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What an awful, evil,, pathetic, little man:<\/p>\n

Baylor University infiltrated sexual assault survivor groups to shape PR strategy and talking points on how to handle the groups and student demonstrations, according to two sources familiar with the matter. <\/span>
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A Title IX lawsuit<\/a>, filed by 10 unnamed former students, has alleged Baylor downplayed sexual assaults at the university. Some of the Jane Does say they were assaulted as far back as 2004, according to court documents.\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>
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In the same month that Ukwuachu was convicted, Baylor\u2019s office of general counsel retained <\/span>[big league PR flacks] Ketchum for comms support, according to Jason Cook, Baylor\u2019s VP for marketing and comms and CMO. <\/span>
<\/span>
James Peters, former partner and director of Ketchum South, served as the account lead. A Ketchum representative declined to make Peters available for comment. <\/span>
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\u2026\u2026\u2026 <\/span>
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One source familiar with the matter identified the “mole” as Matt Burchett, director of student activities at Baylor, whose job is to coordinate student pursuits such as picnics, parties, and demonstrations. The source said Burchett, acting as a liaison with university officials, played damage control on their behalf. <\/span>
<\/span>
Burchett helped to arrange demonstrations for survivor groups and passed on what he learned to school officials and the communications department, sources said. <\/span>
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“Baylor had \u2013 I don\u2019t know what else you\u2019d call it \u2013 a mole that would interact with survivor groups,” said the source.<\/span>
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\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>
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When these groups organized on campus to comfort each other and demand action from former chancellor Kenneth Starr, “[Burchett] would coordinate with them, befriend them, and pretend he was helping them organize vigils and demonstrations [about] sexual assault,” the source added. <\/span>
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Burchett would pass on what he learned to school officials, the communications department, and Ketchum, the source added. In an email described to PRWeek, Kevin Jackson, VP of student life and Burchett\u2019s supervisor, said the director of student activities was “adept at this kind of thing.”<\/span>
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\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>
<\/span>
<\/span>[Baylor VP for Marketing and Communications Jason] Cook objected to the notion that Burchett collected information without the survivor groups\u2019 knowledge. When counsel for the plaintiffs deposed Burchett on July 31, “[Burchett] indicated in his deposition testimony that he had advised the students up front that he would be coordinating with university personnel, including media, security, parking, facilities, pastoral care, and so on,” Cook said. “This is standard operating procedure for any significant student event on our university campus.”<\/span>
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\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>
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Since 2015, Baylor has jettisoned administration and athletic department officials, including former head football coach Art Briles, former athletic director Ian McCaw, and former chancellor Starr<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Spying on rape survivors to undermine their efforts:  What a bunch of contemptible excuses for human beings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While he was trying to coverup sexual assaults by athletes at Baylor, he planted a mole to spy on sexual survivor support groups. What an awful, evil,, pathetic, little man: Baylor University infiltrated sexual assault survivor groups to shape PR strategy and talking points on how to handle the groups and student demonstrations, according to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[544,435,397,364,503,582],"class_list":["post-178756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-academe","tag-crimes","tag-education","tag-evil","tag-sports","tag-violence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178756"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178756\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}