Starr to step down as Baylor chancellor after sex assault scandal -ESPN

By Jon Herskovitz AUSTIN, Texas, June 1 (Reuters) - Former Baylor University President Kenneth Starr will resign as chancellor of the world's largest Baptist university after being implicated in a report for not doing enough to probe sexual assaults by athletes at the school, ESPN reported on Wednesday. Starr, who rose to prominence for his exhaustive investigation of sex scandals surrounding then-President Bill Clinton, told the network in an exclusive interview that he will step down as chancellor immediately as a "matter of conscience," the ESPN show "Outside the Lines" reported on its Twitter feed. Baylor officials were not immediately available for comment. Starr will remain as a professor in Baylor's law school, the show said. Last week, the central Texas university said it had removed Starr as president and would fire head football coach Art Briles after an independent report found administrators mishandled sexual abuse cases involving football players. The investigation found actions by Baylor administrators that directly discouraged students from reporting sexual assaults. In one case, the actions included retaliating against a complainant for reporting a sexual assault. "We need to put this horrible situation behind us," Starr said in a portion of the interview released by the show on social media. He added he was unaware of what was happening but still accepted responsibility. In March, a former student at Baylor brought a negligence lawsuit in federal court against the school, claiming it acted callously and indifferently after she was raped by a Baylor football player. In a separate scandal, Baylor football player Sam Ukwuachu was sentenced last year by a Texas judge to six months in jail for sexually assaulting a fellow student in 2013. Starr became the 14th president of Baylor in 2010. Starr, a former appeals court judge, in the mid-1990s was appointed as a special counsel to investigate Clinton over a real estate investment and other matters. His probe widened to include Clinton's sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, and led to Clinton's impeachment by the House of Representatives. Republicans could not muster the two-thirds majority in the Senate needed to remove Clinton from office and Republicans were later punished at the polls for what many of them conceded was a perceived overzealousness in pursuing Clinton. (Editing by Matthew Lewis)