When Kenneth Starr Gives the Keynote at a Higher Ed Conference

By many accounts, Kenneth W. Starr is a big get as a keynote speaker for any event. That’s how a lot of people felt here this weekend at Stetson University’s annual Higher Education Law and Policy Conference.

To some, however, Starr’s presence at a conference focused largely on Title IX and campus sexual misconduct was problematic.

On Sunday, Starr spoke to about 150 people during a lunchtime conversation moderated by John R. Kroger, a former president of Reed College. Starr reflected on his tumultuous time at the helm of Baylor University, where a vast sexual-assault scandal broke open in 2015 and 2016. He also discussed his views on the evolving landscape surrounding Title IX, the federal gender-equity law, and on the authority of government agencies.

No matter what Starr talked about, his keynote was going to attract attention. Given that he also led the investigation that prompted President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, he’s the kind of person everyone has an opinion about.

While Starr was Baylor’s president, multiple women accused the university of sweeping their cases under the rug and giving football players in particular a free pass when they were accused of rape. The scandal caused Starr to lose his job as president in May 2016, though he stayed on briefly as chancellor. It also led to the firing of Art Briles, the football coach, and Ian McCaw, the athletic director. Starr left Baylor a couple of months later.

Starr is still ensnared in a legal fight at Baylor, the world’s largest Baptist university. A Title IX lawsuit filed by 10 women alleges that Baylor officials had mishandled their sexual-misconduct reports. He said on Sunday that he also expects to be deposed soon in an investigation into Baylor by the National Collegiate Athletic Association. So as he was speaking at a conference on higher-education law, the institution he used to lead stood accused of having violated higher-education law.

But Starr seemed bullish on how those legal battles will end up. When the first reports came out about Baylor and sexual assault, he said, “it looked like it was an athletic-department issue. It turned out, it was not. And I hope that will eventually be the conclusion of the NCAA, the private litigation, and so forth.” (He declined to elaborate after the event.)

‘Indirect Responsibility’

During the keynote, Starr was lighthearted at times. Of Baylor, he said, “we still love it. We continue to support the university. I lament the fact that I was fired. That’s not pleasant.” The crowd laughed.

He also emphasized, as he has on many occasions, that he didn’t know about the sexual-misconduct problems at Baylor until they were unearthed in the news media and in a damning outside investigation by Pepper Hamilton, a Philadelphia law firm. “Not once was the issue of interpersonal violence raised with me in a student session,” he said. “Not once was it raised in my regular engagement with student-body officers.”

Starr said he took responsibility for what had happened at Baylor “in the sense that the chief executive officer ultimately accepts responsibility for what happens under his or her stewardship.” Ever the lawyer, he described it as “indirect responsibility, although not culpability.”

On Title IX, he expressed concern about the burgeoning costs for colleges of dealing with sexual-misconduct cases, noting that Baylor on several occasions had hired retired judges to run disciplinary proceedings. “We were so concerned that reasoned decision-making resulted in enormous expense,” he said.

The Fallout at Baylor

A sexual-assault controversy led the university to demote its president and take action against members of its athletics staff. Read more about how the scandal unfolded and its lingering effects.

• How Baylor’s First Female President Plans to Move Past the Sex-Assault Scandals
• At Baylor, a Scandal’s Constant Drip Means a Relentless Spotlight
• Feuding Over Sex-Assault Scandal Intensifies Spotlight on Baylor

He said he was pleased to see the U.S. Department of Education now going through a formal regulatory process with a public-comment period for rules to enforce Title IX, calling the Obama administration’s approach of only issuing guidance documents “anti-democratic.”

He talked about how the department’s proposed Title IX rules would, it appears, no longer require colleges to investigate reports of off-campus sexual misconduct. At Baylor, “overwhelmingly the issues we ended up dealing with under Title IX were off-campus issues,” he said. “How do you monitor activity that is not university-sponsored and that is off campus?”

One Title IX coordinator from Texas told Starr during a question-and-answer period that some students at his institution who had transferred from Baylor have questioned why they should have faith in the Title IX process after their experience at the Baptist university. He wanted to know how Starr would recommend restoring that faith.

Starr told him: “If the bonds of trust have been broken, then they have to be rebuilt. That’s a deeply relational, a relationship that is informed by values and as much transparency as possible.”

‘We Won’t Go Back’

Many people at the conference were excited about the chance to engage with Starr. But on Twitter, his talk provoked anger. Some prominent anti-rape advocates amplified the concerns on Friday and called for Starr’s appearance to be canceled.

Most of the conference went off without issue, and without mention of Starr. But some attendees were discussing it, and a couple of people chose not to go to Starr’s talk. “It’s too soon,” one said.

“One of the best aspects of the conference is it brings diverse viewpoints together,” said S. Daniel Carter, a prominent campus-safety expert. “But when the field is looking for direction and leadership on Title IX, someone who presided over one of the biggest sexual-assault scandals in higher education isn’t the right person to be featured that prominently.”

Taylor Parker, the compliance officer and Title IX coordinator at the Ringling College of Art and Design, is a sexual-assault victim herself. She wishes, she said, that the conference had also featured the perspectives of women who could describe how Baylor administrators had mistreated them when they reported being sexually assaulted.

“Often in this type of work, we don’t realize how important the symbolism is,” Parker said. That Starr had been asked to speak “needs to be contextualized to the people he hurt,” she said. Throughout the conference she wore a black shirt that read: “We won’t go back.”

Peter F. Lake, a law professor who leads Stetson’s Center for Higher Education Law and Policy and who organized the conference, said he welcomed the opportunity to feature a higher-education leader who could speak about making mistakes. Lake invited Starr last year, while the Stetson professor was working with a community college near Baylor.

“Honestly, I think having experienced failure is a huge part of the Title IX universe,” Lake said. He also noted that investigations, an area in which Starr has a lot of expertise, “are the hottest concept in the business right now.”

Lake said he had received about 20 emails over the weekend from people who were upset with him for inviting Starr. But he considered much of the dissent to be “potential energy” from well-intended activists for sexual-assault victims, and he took their passionate response as a sign that victim advocates will continue to fight. He said they had given him ideas for future programming.

Some attendees said they enjoy Lake’s conference in particular because they get to hear from people with a range of viewpoints. They also cited Starr’s impressive legal credentials. He had made his way to the District of Columbia federal appeals court — considered a staging ground for future U.S. Supreme Court justices — in his 30s. He then served as President George W. Bush’s solicitor general and as dean of Pepperdine University’s law school.

Beyond Baylor and Title IX, Starr touched on a range of topics on Sunday. He said government agencies had been given too much leeway to interpret federal law, and he believes the Supreme Court will soon scale that back. He described his alarm at the intolerance of conservative political viewpoints that he sees in the academy.

In an interview after the event, he didn’t have much to say about the controversy surrounding his appearance at the conference. “That’s a question for someone else,” he said. “I was honored by the invitation.”

Clarification (2/4/2019, 12:38 a.m.): This article has been updated to clarify a comment from Peter Lake.

Sarah Brown writes about a range of higher-education topics, including sexual assault, race on campus, and Greek life. Follow her on Twitter @Brown_e_Points, or email her at sarah.brown@chronicle.com.