New Victims. New Lies. Same Texas Tech
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Texas Tech University provided false reports on the number of sexual assaults on the Lubbock campus in at least two of the last four federally required annual crime on campus reports. The result was the gross underreporting of sex crimes on the Lubbock campus in both 2016 and 2017.
The widening probe of TTU’s false reporting of sex crimes on campus by the Houston-based investigative media firm, Dolcefino Consulting, comes as a number of sexual assault victims come forward to claim that Texas Tech is protecting fraternities in Title IX complaints and failing to warn students about some forced rapes as required under the federal Clery Act.
Sydney Burns, a Lubbock woman who says she was sexually assaulted by a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha (PIKE) fraternity in 2016, says, “They are protecting these assaulters but not the people who have been through shit. It makes me very sad.”
In October of 2019, Lubbock media reported on the explosion in reported sex crimes on Tech’s Lubbock campus. What Texas Tech officials failed to tell students and their parents was that the school had gone back and “corrected” reporting in prior years.
In 2016, Tech reported just five sexual assaults on campus. We now know there were actually more than double the initially reported sexual assaults—there were really 13. In 2017, Tech reported 11 sexual assaults when there were actually 15.
“Following a self-initiated internal review and after seeking clarification from the U.S. Department of Education, we have updated the Clery crime statistics,” Tech wrote in the fine print of the 2017 report that was re-released in October of 2019.
“Does Texas Tech really think anyone believes they had to clarify what a forced rape was?” asked Dolcefino Consulting President Wayne Dolcefino. “Tech’s amnesia about documented sex crimes was suddenly fixed after we demanded to see the actual sex offense reports.”
Tech continues to hide sex assault reports from both 2018 and 2019. Of 27 documented sex crimes on campus in 2019, Tech has released none of them. Of the 24 reported sex crimes in 2018, Tech has released just 11 reports. The University has refused to identify the fraternities involved in any of the sexual assault cases.
Our sex crimes investigation at the Lubbock campus emerged out of the wholly unrelated investigation into the illegal firing of former football coach Mike Leach. Dolcefino Consulting was asked by Coach Leach to prove the firing was illegal and statements made to donors and football fans were falsified.
Texas Tech University has fought for years to keep records in the Leach case a secret from the public. A Travis County District Court judge paved the way for Dolcefino Consulting to file suit against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who continues to use his office to defend Texas Tech in the Leach case.
“Ken Paxton needs to explain to the parents of young women at Texas Tech why he helps this University hide records of sexual assaults, especially when we now can prove Tech provided false information to the federal government and hid sex crimes from students in the hours after they happened,” Dolcefino said.
The latest reporting from Dolcefino Consulting titled New Victims, New Lies can be found at dolcefino.com and Dolcefino Consulting on Facebook.
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