A group of about 400 Baylor supporters whose directors include a former Texas governor, a billionaire businessman and several prominent lawyers called Thursday for the facts behind the decisions made by the school’s regents in the wake of the sexual assault scandal that engulfed the university’s football program and for major changes in the way the regents do business.

“Bears for Leadership Reform” launched an effort Thursday morning in Waco to demand transparency, accountability and wholesale reform of the Baylor Board of Regents.

“We’re not seeking a legal way, we’re seeking public support from the Baylor family that we’ll come together and make our voice so loud, they’ll have to come up to this podium. We need a movement where we are heard,” Houston lawyer John Eddie Williams said Thursday during a meeting at the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum across from the university’s campus.

The field at Baylor’s McLane Stadium bears Williams’ name; he was among several major donors to the stadium project.

The group’s board of directors includes Williams, former Texas Gov. Mark White; Regent Emeritus Gale Galloway; former Regent Emily Tinsley; Houston lawyer James H. “Rell” Tipton; former Texas state Sen. Don Adams, and Temple businessman and Regent Emeritus Drayton McLane, for whom Baylor’s $266 million riverside stadium is named.

McLane is a regent emeritus, but said Thursday he hasn’t attended meetings of the board for several years.

“We need to determine what are the real facts and were the right decisions made by the board. That’s the real issue,” he told the group Thursday.

White, who earned undergraduate and law degrees from Baylor in the 1960s, questioned how long it takes regents “to do the right thing.”

“I think that’s the reason it’s time for change,” he said.

“Only the alumni and the faculty speaking out and telling the board it’s time to go will make the change,” he said.

“They’re just not a good fit for what we need at Baylor on the board,” he said.

Former Baylor football coach Grant Teaff was among those who attended the meeting Thursday.

“I'm in favor of Baylor people who love this university asking questions that they deserve to have answers for and I'm favor of those who have the answers responding. Every day there's something different that happens,” he said.

The group unveiled a website Thursday, along with social media platforms, to reach out to students, prospective students, alumni, parents, faculty, pastors and congregation members, as well as to others not directly affiliated with Baylor.

The Baylor Board of Regents has 34 voting members, but two positions are vacant because of the recent resignations of Kathy Wills Wright and Christopher Howard.

Three of the voting members fill alumni-elected positions on the board, which were created as the result of a settlement agreement in a lawsuit that Baylor filed against the Baylor Alumni Association, which is now called the Baylor Line Foundation.

The first three, Dan Chapman, Wayne Fisher and Julie Turner, were appointed jointly by the Baylor Line Foundation and the board of regents.

As their initial terms expire, all alumni will vote to either reelect them or elect a different regent to those seats.

Of the remaining 31, 25 percent are technically appointed by the Baptist General Convention of Texas, but the current board controls that process and can veto any BGCT appointee.

The other 75 percent are appointed by the board itself.

There are also non-voting student, faculty and B Association representatives on the board who serve one-year terms.

The board also approves their appointments.

On the eve of the meeting, Baylor announced Wednesday evening that regents have formed a Governance Review Task Force to review board practices, procedures and selection processes.

"This Task Force will be a part of an important governance review that has been done on a regular basis for the past several years," said board Chairman Ron Murff said.

"We want to ensure we continue to take positive steps in fulfilling our fiduciary responsibilities and in doing our best for Baylor."

The task force includes current regents Robert Beauchamp of Houston and Jerry Clements of Austin, University of Texas System Regent Paul L. Foster, of El Paso, Houston businessman and attorney Douglas Y. Bech and Baylor College of Medicine Trustee Larry Heard of Houston.

Jeffery Chapman, a partner and co-chair of the Gibson Dunn law firm’s Global Mergers and Acquisitions Practice Group in Dallas, will serve as coordinator of the task force, and John Olson, a founding partner of Gibson Dunn’s Washington, D.C. office, will serve as a resource for the group, the university said.

A lengthy review by the Pepper Hamilton law firm led to the firing of head football coach Art Briles, reassignment of Chancellor and President Ken Starr and suspension of athletic director Ian McCaw.

But the review was flawed, according to university insiders to whom KWTX talked during a months-long investigation.

Information from sources with direct knowledge of the review, and secret recordings of meetings with athletic staffers obtained by KWTX, suggest that the firm’s investigators came to Waco with an agenda to purge members of the football program and had a racial undertone in their line of questioning.