The Baylor Board of Regents last week released a 13-page report on the findings of an outside law firm’s investigation into the university’s handling of sex assault allegations, promising “transparency and accountability.”
But former Baylor president and chancellor Ken Starr’s statements are still being filtered, according to a moment captured during an interview with KWTX in Waco.
Starr struggled to answer a question regarding an email from a woman claiming she was raped at Baylor.
He sat down with KWTX reporter Julie Hays, after a damning Outside the Lines report aired documenting Baylor’s inadequate response to sex assault allegations.
Watch the video below or here.
In the OTL report, an email sent to the president’s office last November with the subject line “I Was Raped at Baylor” was shown. Hays confronted Starr about whether he had seen that email.
“I honestly may have,” Starr responded. “I’m not denying that I saw it.”
The interview was then stopped by Merrie Spaeth, a communication coach who Starr says is a close friend.
She asked KWTX News Director Mikel Lauber if the station would not use Starr’s first answer to the question, according to KWTX. When he said no, Spaeth pulled Starr into the hallway, apparently to consult him on a different response.
Spaeth, -- described on her company's website as "a master of executive coaching" -- re-entered the room with Starr, telling Hays she has to ask him the question again.
She said she wanted to make sure the response didn’t get “mis-edited”
When asked the question again, Starr provided two different answers.
“I’m honestly going to say, I have no recollection of that,” he said before turning to Spaeth and asking, “is that OK?”
His third rendition of the answer:
“I honestly have no recollection of seeing such an email, and I believe that I would remember seeing such an email. The president of the University gets lots of emails. I don’t even see a lot of the emails that come into the office of the President. I have no recollection of it. None.”
Spaeth, the founder of Dallas-based crisis communication firm Spaeth Communications, served as director of media relations for the White House during the Reagan administration.
Before her tenure there, she worked as a producer and speech writer for high-profile television networks, was assigned to FBI Director William Webster and was the director of public affairs for the FTC.
KWTX News Director Lauber told News 8 in light of everything going on at Baylor he thought it was a significant moment to report. "It would have been one thing if he had misspoke, ask if he could phrase it differently, but it was something else entirely," said Laubel. "She was interjecting trying to change the message, control the message."
Spaeth later told KWTX she 'made a huge mistake and is sorry she hurt her friend Ken Starr.'
Responding to KWTX's interview, Spaeth wrote News 8 'our job is to help clients tell a truthful story effectively, but KWTX is correct with my quote that I should not have interrupted.'
Starr was stripped of his president role at Baylor on May 26, and later resigned from his chancellor position six days later. He remains a professor in the university’s law school.
