Osler's Razor

I was going to write today about the vice-presidential debate, but the main take-away from that seems to be "Wow, those guys talk over each other a lot!

Instead, let's talk about the latest messiness at Baylor which turned into a spectacle spilling over to CBS' morning show yesterday. Earlier this week, all of the following happened (according to reports from the Waco Tribune-Herald and KWTX-TV):

-- Patty Crawford has been the Title IX coordinator at Baylor since 2014, charged with overseeing the University's response to sexual assaults.

-- She filed a complaint with the Department of Education's Title IX department, complaining that Baylor had taken away her authority. Specifically, she described Baylor's Reagan Ramshower as working against her.

-- Mediation took place. Baylor offered $1,550,000 to settle the complaint and  ensure that Crawford did not talk publicly about these events.

-- Mediation failed. Crawford quit her job and is already talking about what happened publicly. At the heart of her claims is the assertion that Baylor chose to "protect its brand" rather than properly address sexual assault claims.

My observation is this: If Baylor is paying (or offering people) $1.5 million to keep things out of the courts and the press, something very wrong has been going on. That money comes, one expects, from endowment money or tuition-- that is, from charitable donations people made to the school, or from the tuition money that families pay to the school.