The Liberty Way

October 24, 2021 7:50 PM

Liberty University, an Evangelical college in central Virginia, requires all students to adhere to the Liberty Way, an honor code that forbids, among many other things, alcohol consumption and pre-marital sex. Pro Publica investigates how the college has used threats of disciplinary action for violations of the Liberty Way, as well as other practices that violate Federal law, to discourage sexual assault survivors from coming forward and to punish survivors who pursue justice.

This one comes with content warnings for sexual assault, bureaucratic abuse of survivors and their supporters, and attempted suicide. Seriously: I found it pretty hard to read, and you should feel free to skip it if these are difficult topics for you.

posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious (29 comments total)

Opening Arguments covered some of this stuff, as well.
posted by chasing at 8:27 PM on October 24, 2021 [4 favorites]

Pro Publica continues to do fine work.
posted by doctornemo at 8:55 PM on October 24, 2021 [15 favorites]

I can't finish reading the article. I think of my daughters and try to picture them in that situation and it makes me feel sick.
posted by Ickster at 9:04 PM on October 24, 2021

I can't say any of this actually shocked me, except that Lamb actually tried to whistle-blower about it.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:04 PM on October 24, 2021 [5 favorites]

I don't know how you view Liberty University and its honour code with anything but cynicism given the ongoing behaviour of Jerry Jr. How do you ever imagine that the school will do the right thing?
posted by fatbird at 9:08 PM on October 24, 2021 [12 favorites]

It's interesting to talk about cynicism, and have a look at the actual 'honor code':

Restorative Practices refers to the multifaceted approach to conflict or disciplinary issues, which promotes holistic and healing processes that encourage students to live peaceably in community with one another. Restorative Practices include all those who are impacted by the behavior (responsible parties, harmed parties, and community members),

On one read that's a breathtakingly cynical appropriation of restorative justice, by a group who have little or nothing in common with actual restorationist practitioners, but on another it's just use of the principles in an amoral way—placing the interests of a community above those of individuals, and seeking to avoid punishment or the involvement of the State (when in fact, it's punishment and the power of law that's called for, not prayer). It's a system being cynically worked according to the letter of its design:

As previously stated, enforcement of community standards, through the use of sanctions, is intended to be redemptive, restorative, and carried out with love and grace

You can't say they don't declare upfront who they are.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 9:51 PM on October 24, 2021 [17 favorites]

Sometimes I wish I could go back to a time when I was capable of being even mildly surprised by any of this. It’s a great, well-written article.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:00 PM on October 24, 2021 [14 favorites]

One thing I felt like the Pro Publica article could have emphasized: Under the Clery Act, all crimes reported on campus have to be presented publicly in an annual report. You should be able to find these reports on any college's website. By actively preventing students from reporting crimes to campus police, including using the honor code to retaliate against them and lying and saying that their cases couldn't go through the Title IX process if they were also reported to the police, Liberty keeps its Clery Act reports from showing the actual number of known sexual assaults occurring on campus each year.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:44 AM on October 25, 2021 [38 favorites]

(This message brought to you by the annual training on the Clery Act and Title IX that I have to do because I am a university employee. I wonder if Liberty is complying with that training rule.)
posted by hydropsyche at 4:45 AM on October 25, 2021 [17 favorites]

From something I wrote elsewhere recently:
---
Extracting bits and pieces of my evangelical upbringing never ends.

I'm finally to the point where I can see that forgiveness is not an obligation but a choice. And that it's not inherently bad or good. It just enables a different set of relationship (including with yourself) dynamics.

But as I've seen it enable patterns of serial abuse from people who hurt others, beg forgiveness, then repeat -
All I can say is that forgiveness is the individual's choice. And if someone hurts you, it is not your responsibility to give them a pass. It is not your responsibility to make them feel better.

You can choose to. Or not. Neither choice makes you a better or worse person.
---

Follow up thought:

Institutionally enforced forgiveness isn't forgiveness. It's enshrinement of a right to abuse. Gatekeeping legal recourse makes the Institution a party to this abuse, whether that is technically legally sound or not, it remains ethically so.
posted by allium cepa at 6:04 AM on October 25, 2021 [22 favorites]

I live in terror that our beloved childcare provider (who is 21) is considering attending Liberty or a similar school. She is brilliant but a bit naïve in the way common to young evangelicals.
I wish I could print this article out into a pamphlet and put it into the hands of every single person who is considering attending that hellish "school."
posted by Baby_Balrog at 7:21 AM on October 25, 2021 [2 favorites]

IIRC, Jerry Sr. left it all to his two sons. One son grokked the religion part, becoming a minister, believing in Jesus. The other son understood the business and power aspects, steamrolling over everyone and understanding that you need to fundraise to keep a university going make money to stay in power. Guess which son forced the other son out of the university.
posted by Melismata at 7:34 AM on October 25, 2021 [3 favorites]

Let's not skip over what Liberty University and Jerry Sr. were. Liberty was founded by Falwell four years after he founded Lynchburg Chrisitian Academy which was explicitly founded as a segregation academy. Jerry Sr. advocated for homophobia, white supremacy, and patriarchy. Jerry Sr. may have believed in Jesus but he was scum.
posted by rdr at 7:51 AM on October 25, 2021 [20 favorites]

Hoo boy if you're interested in LU, please listen to Season 3 of Gangster Capitalism. It's a meticulously researched long form takedown of Liberty University.

Other seasons of Gangster Capitalism cover the college admission scandal and the NRA. Good stuff.
posted by workerant at 9:43 AM on October 25, 2021 [3 favorites]

There is no shortage of stories of Religious People Behaving Badly. Given that religion purports to tame the basest impulses of human nature, these narratives always sadden me, anger me, and disturb me. I should accept the ubiquity of hypocrisy, but I would have to understand it first, and this is difficult for me. Perhaps if I had ever been religious, I could understand this phenomenon better. I cannot believe that these people are just giving lip service to their religious ideals. I can only hope that they have a harder time living with their own hypocrisy than I do living with theirs, but if that were the case, we'd be living in a better world. We're not.
posted by kozad at 9:58 AM on October 25, 2021 [1 favorite]

I continue to be amazed that Liberty, of all places, is having drunken raver frat parties all the time, though. I know, it's college, but you'd think that place, of all places, would have put the hammer down on their ability to do that?

On a related note, I really enjoyed listening to "In God We Lust," a podcast about the Jerry Jr. threesome scandal.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:40 AM on October 25, 2021 [2 favorites]

Fundamentalist christians being misogynists? I find that hard easy to believe.
posted by tommasz at 10:51 AM on October 25, 2021 [5 favorites]

This past summer, Liberty University’s handling of sexual assault came under closer scrutiny. The lawsuit filed in July by 12 women was followed by an outpouring of concern, frustration and calls for action on social media.

If you have the stomach for it, that suit is just jaw-dropping and has a section on the weaponization of The Liberty Way. For instance, Jane Doe 12, who was 15 when she was assaulted on campus while attending a summer debate camp in 2000, alleges that the Liberty University campus police declined to investigate her sexual assault because they claimed it was her fault because she was wearing pants in her residential building; at the time The Liberty Way required women to wear dresses. And that is the least awful thing she says the police did to her after being assaulted by a Liberty football player, who the suit identifies as a man who was later convicted of abducting, raping, and murdering women.
posted by peeedro at 1:04 PM on October 25, 2021 [7 favorites]

The "restorative" "justice" thingie that Fiasco pointed out is jaw-dropping. I wish I had more scare quotes to indicate how it has nothing to do with either word let alone that actual concept of restorative justice.
posted by spamandkimchi at 1:24 PM on October 25, 2021 [2 favorites]

Remember when Falwell and friends had that yacht party and dressed as Trailer Park Boys characters? You know, the guys acted like drunks, the women acted like sluts, and it was all fun? Liberty students pointed out that they would be disciplined for acting the way Falwell did. But that was the fantasy -- alcohol and sex -- that Falwell entertained.
posted by CCBC at 2:57 PM on October 25, 2021 [7 favorites]

Vaguely amused how religion turns sex into a bedroom farce.
The metaphysical equivalent of business and it's love of monopolies I suppose.
posted by Narrative_Historian at 11:59 PM on October 25, 2021

@Narrative_Historian
Could you please explain what you mean?
posted by ®@ at 4:35 AM on October 26, 2021

Scott Lamb, the former Liberty Sr VP of Communications turned whistleblower, has sued LU for illegal retaliation under Title IX.
posted by peeedro at 5:10 AM on October 26, 2021 [3 favorites]

Scott Lamb, the former Liberty Sr VP of Communications turned whistleblower, has sued LU for illegal retaliation under Title IX.

That ProPublica piece is horrifying and damning. One hopes that Lamb's suit and others sues the fraud that is the so-called "Liberty University" into oblivion, but at least one hopes they wind up forcing it to diametrically change their policies regarding on-campus rape -- namely, punishing the victims, not the perpetrators -- which, it seems would go far to subvert the obviously patriarchal and hypocritical standards there.
posted by Gelatin at 6:11 AM on October 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

Liberty was founded by Falwell four years after he founded Lynchburg Chrisitian Academy which was explicitly founded as a segregation academy.

Which explains why he was so upset by Bob Jones University vs. United States, which in many ways was the birth of the modern conservative movement (or at least a significant point in its evolution).
posted by TedW at 7:50 AM on October 26, 2021 [3 favorites]

So I've been listening to Gangster Capitalism and there's one episode where the girl is going on in great detail about her brutal rape and how everyone ignores it when she tries to report because the rapist is a BMOC. Hell, even if he wasn't, they'd ignore it, because he's a man and you're a worthless woman and who cares? I feel sad that they thought they were going to be protected in any way. There's also a correspondence between Jerry Jr and a girl asking for cameras in the tunnels under the school and Jerry's all "they're well lighted, they're pretty safe" and the girl is like, "I repeat, my roommate got raped in there."
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:45 AM on October 26, 2021 [2 favorites]

I live in terror that our beloved childcare provider (who is 21) is considering attending Liberty or a similar school. She is brilliant but a bit naïve in the way common to young evangelicals.

I was offered a really, really good scholarship package at a Christian college in the South. I gave it a lot of serious thought because we were poor and although my grades were good I still wasn’t in the kind of position where I could write my own ticket wherever I wanted to go. I would start thinking that I could just go to classes and not participate in any of the religious stuff. But then I’d remember what things had been like at my religious primary school, and could only imagine they’d be magnified times 1000 at the post-secondary level.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:55 PM on October 26, 2021 [2 favorites]

Okay, I'm on the last episode of Gangster Capitalism and I am in a complete fucking rage at the police treatment of a non-drinking, non-partying, football-player-just-storms-in-and-rapes-her 15-year-old girl. I hope Liberty is nuked from orbit someday. There is nothing not-awful about this cesspool of abuse and religion.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:55 AM on October 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

Christianity Today: As Students Rally for Victims, Liberty Board Approves Title IX Review

A university press release called it “an independent and comprehensive review of its Title IX policies and processes” and said Prevo would “engage a third party to independently assess the facts necessary for Liberty University to make things right with the Jane Doe Title IX plaintiffs.”

A great thread from Rachael Denhollander, the lawyer and former gymnast who was the first woman to publicly accuse Larry Nassar of sexual abuse, on why a Title IX review is not good enough - twitter | threadreader :

What has been requested clearly and in explicit detail was a process that is frequently used in these situations : A culture, structure and policy audit, with historical accounting. Leadership was explicitly asked NOT to confine the review to Title IX.

Demonstrating their commitment to "transparency", on the same day Liberty announced their Title IX review, they filed a temporary restraining order against whistleblower and former spokesperson Scott Lamb to prevent him from speaking to the press and sued him for $1-3 million.

And this little gem amazed me, the PR firm Liberty hired to navigate the allegations is run by another former spokesperson, Johnnie Moore. Leaked emails show in 2019 Moore had recommended that Falwell circumvent IRS rules to create a pension for board member Jerry Vines who was under fire for protecting a pastor by concealing decades of accusations of sexual abuse by dozens of women.

Finally, Propublica: Senators Call for Federal Investigation Into Liberty University’s Handling of Sexual Assaults.

Citing possible violations of federal law, three senators, including the two from Virginia, are pressing the U.S. Department of Education to investigate Liberty University’s handling of sexual assault claims.

posted by peeedro at 1:39 PM on November 12, 2021