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Report: Additional ex-Title IX officer at Baylor filed federal complaints vs. school

Gabrielle Lyons resigned from Baylor in the fall of 2015. (AP)
Gabrielle Lyons resigned from Baylor in the fall of 2015. (AP)

Another former member of Baylor’s Title IX department has accused the school of wrongdoing.

According to ESPN’s Outside the Lines, Gabrielle Lyons — who worked with former Title IX coordinator Patty Crawford at the school — initially filed a Title IX complaint against the school in April after she left in November of 2015. She then accused the school of intimidation and discrimination in a December complaint filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Last spring, Lyons reached out to a campus sexual assault advocacy group called End Rape on Campus to file a Title IX complaint against Baylor on her behalf to the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights. She worked with the group rather than file her own complaint because at the time, she feared retaliation and hoped to remain anonymous.

Crawford became a central figure in Baylor’s handling of sexual assault accusations after she resigned from the school in the fall. She refused a $2 million settlement with the university because she didn’t want to sign a confidentiality agreement. In an interview with “60 Minutes Sports,” she said the school’s head of public safety said in September 2015 that some women reporting sexual assaults had mental illness.

She also noted in a previous “Outside the Lines” report that immunity for players was brought up by university administrators at a February meeting discussing allegations vs. football players.

Baylor regents told the Wall Street Journal in October that 17 women accused 19 players of various types of assaults since 2011.

According to the OTL report, Lyons “received the most pushback from Baylor officials on getting police records and arranging interviews” regarding accusations vs. football players. She came to Baylor in April of 2015 after “several” years as an investigator for the U.S. government, including time with the EEOC.

The report notes Lyons was the unnamed investigator in a November Baylor statement that said a staffer resigned after being frustrated with the school and Crawford.

That investigator was Lyons, and she told “Outside the Lines” this week she “was hurt and in disbelief” when she read that statement because she said she left “because of Baylor’s noncompliance. If anything, I always asked for more support for Patty and the Office.”

Baylor fired coach Art Briles in May after the release of a law firm’s investigation into the school’s handling of sexual assault allegations. Athletic director Ian McCaw resigned, as did former president Ken Starr.

For more Baylor news, visit SicEmSports.com.

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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!