A recent Dallas Morning News report broke news of a new lawsuit filed by a former Baylor student last week that alleges 52 instances of sexual assault by 31 football players from 2011-2014.

The allegation is significantly higher than what Baylor officials have acknowledged — which was just 17 assaults by 19 football players since 2011.

Iowa State president Steven Leath — a Big 12 board member and a member of the Division I board of directors — sat down with the Iowa State Daily on Wednesday to give his thoughts on the issue.

“Frankly, the initial reports are shocking,” Leath said. “It’s almost inconceivable that that could have happened in the numbers that are being reported … as a Big 12 board member and a member of both the Division I board of directors of the NCAA and the NCAA board of governors, I’d say were constantly saddened and frustrated when we get these kinds of reports.”

The school has dealt with the scandal since midway through 2016. It led to the departure of former Baylor football coach Art Briles and former President Ken Starr.

A 2016 internal investigation said assistant coaches and staff of the football program acted like “it was above the rules,” according to the Associated Press, and that the school ignored and didn’t protect accusers.

The lawsuit also alleges the school “used sex to sell” Baylor to potential football recruits, including bringing underage visitors to strip clubs and bringing women to have sex with them, according to the Dallas Morning News.

It was all a part of a “show ’em a good time” culture that was fostered under Briles, according to the lawsuit. Briles’ attorney, Ernest Cannon, denied Briles was involved in that type of culture.

“If they were doing that it would be terrible, but they weren’t doing that. Art wasn’t involved in anything like that,” Cannon told the Associated Press. “Lawyers have great imaginations when money is involved. It’s really sad.”

Leath, who said he is stunned by the allegations, said it is still too early to make any decisions on any punishments handed down by either the Big 12 or the NCAA.

“It’s premature to say because we don’t know exactly what happened,” Leath said. “We know what was alleged. I think it’s going to take some due diligence. We’re so offended by these things, we want to rush and say, ‘We’ve got to fix this. We’ve got to deal with this.’”

While some are calling for a “death penalty” to be handed down by the NCAA — similar to what the NCAA did with SMU in 1986 following a decade-long recruiting scandal — Leath said it’s too early to make that decision as well.

“In a position like mine as a board member you have to be responsible and say, ‘OK, what are all the facts and what really happened here and who knew what,’” Leath said. “So until we knew that, it’s hard to say what the penalty will be. But I will say the tolerance for these types of things if they occur is pretty much gone.”

-Luke Manderfeld contributed to this report.