Kenneth Starr, demoted last week from his position as president of Baylor University, also will step down as chancellor of the Christian school in Texas,ESPN reported Wednesday.
The revelation about Starr comes amid a leadership shakeup as Baylor confronts the fallout from a scathing report on its handling of sexual assault cases involving football players and others.
Starr told ESPN’s Joe Schad that he was resigning as chancellor effective immediately “as a matter of conscience.” ESPN quoted Starr as calling for transparency at Baylor, saying that “as each day goes by that need becomes more and more pressing.”
“We need to put this horrible experience behind us,” Starr told ESPN. “We need to be honest.”
The ESPN report on Starr’s status at Baylor could not be immediately confirmed. Neither a Baylor spokeswoman nor Starr responded to emailed requests for comment. Starr also is a law professor at Baylor, and ESPN reported that he plans to remain in that position.
Starr had led Baylor as president since 2010 and had held the title of chancellor since 2013. Last week, the university’s Board of Regents fired Baylor’s football coach, Art Briles, and stripped Starr of the title of president in response to an investigative report that found the school treated sexual assault accusations against football players with alarming indifference.
Starr, a former federal appellate judge, is best known as as the independent counsel who investigated President Bill Clinton’s affair with a White House intern. He issued a report on that probe that paved the way for the historic House vote in 1998 to impeach Clinton. The Senate later acquitted Clinton of charges of obstruction of justice and perjury.