A former financial aid officer who sued Baylor University claiming she was fired for reinstating the scholarship of a football player accused of sexual assault has reached an agreement with the school and her lawsuit was dismissed Tuesday.
The suit was filed in January by Lyn Wheeler Kinyon, former assistant vice president for student financial aid. It stated that after the appeal committee she led voted on July 6, 2016, to reinstate the scholarship, her new supervisor met with her two months later to complain about her performance and ended up firing her in November.
Kinyon had alleged retaliation under Title IX, the federal gender equity law cited when someone accuses a university of mishandling sexual assault complaints. With the dismissal of her lawsuit Tuesday, Baylor now faces six Title IX lawsuits filed by 15 women alleging the school did not properly respond to their complaints of sexual violence.
The football player wasn't named in the lawsuit, but the case pertained to former Baylor defensive tackle Jeremy Faulk. Critics of Baylor have held up Faulk's case as an example of the school overreacting and denying due process to an accused student, in response to the ongoing criticism that the school had for years failed to properly address sexual violence complaints, especially those involving football players.
Several sources told Outside the Lines in prior interviews that Baylor administrators revoked Faulk's scholarship after hearing about the sexual assault allegations, even though the school's Title IX office had not yet notified Faulk that he was under investigation, an assertion Faulk also made in earlier interviews with ESPN.
The lawsuit stated that the player "had not committed sexual assault, was wrongfully accused of unspecified misconduct, kicked off the football team, denied his scholarship, housing and meal allowance on May 30, 2016."
Faulk, a native of Palatka, Florida, who transferred to Baylor from Garden City Community College in Kansas, has said previously that he had consensual sex with the woman who accused him. No criminal charges ever were filed. When reached by Outside the Lines in June 2016, the woman said that Faulk and another player "forced me to do things that I didn't want to do against my own consent."
When Faulk returned to campus on May 30 for summer school, the lawsuit alleged, he was told he had been removed from the team, did not have housing and should sleep on one of his teammate's couches.
On June 1, Baylor officials asked Faulk to sign a release that would allow them to obtain his student records from Florida Atlantic, where he played in 2013 and 2014.
On June 7, Baylor officials notified Faulk that he had been dismissed from the team. The school's Title IX office informed Faulk of a complaint against him on the same day.
Faulk appealed the university's decision to revoke his scholarship, and during the appeal hearing, according to the lawsuit, "Baylor's representatives dropped the allegation that [Faulk] had been involved in sexual activity in violation of Title IX as justification for rescission of the scholarship, although the allegation of sexual misconduct were the sole motivating factor for Baylor's termination of his scholarship."
The lawsuit alleged that Baylor officials attempted to justify the decision "solely on the grounds that [Faulk] had been untruthful on his application for admission to Baylor." According to the lawsuit, Faulk was placed on academic probation for his classroom performance at Florida Atlantic. Baylor's admissions application for transfer students asks if they have been disciplined for "academic or behavioral misconduct."
The lawsuit said the appeals committee voted to reinstate Faulk's scholarship, but only after it received assurances from Baylor general counsel Doug Welch that committee members wouldn't face retaliation for the decision. According to the lawsuit, Welch sent an email to Kinyon on July 5, 2016, which read: "While there is not written policy of Baylor not to retaliate against persons who serve on committees, general policies regarding standards of personal conduct and the code of ethics would apply here to protect the individuals who serve in such roles."
The lawsuit stated that Baylor's Title IX office continued to investigate the case until Oct. 13, when it informed Faulk that the complaint would be suspended -- as long as he agreed to never seek readmission to Baylor and to not return to its campus.