The US Department of Education (DOE) announced on Tuesday that it has fined Liberty University $14 million for its failures to report campus crimes and its treatment of sexual assault survivors. The culmination of a long-running federal investigation, it’s by far the biggest high-quality for such a campus safety violation, in accordance with the department.
Liberty is the biggest evangelical college within the country, with the varsity reporting in 2022 about 16,000 students on campus and 130,000 students enrolled overall. The school has $4 billion in assets. It is amongst the universities awarded essentially the most federal aid within the country, with students receiving $772 million in 2017 in accordance with ProPublica.
Colleges receiving federal aid are required by the Clery Act to report crime statistics and campus threats. After a grievance in 2021, the DOE reviewed Liberty’s handling of campus safety from 2017 to 2023.
The federal government found the failures at Liberty centered on its handling of sexual crimes. The department’s final review concluded that Liberty had failed in 11 areas, from timely responses to sexual violence to reporting crimes either to the department or the broader community.
“Students, faculty, and staff should know that they might be secure and secure of their school communities. We respond aggressively to complaints about campus safety and security,” said Richard Cordray, who oversees federal student aid for the DOE, in a press release.
In response, Liberty acknowledged that “there have been quite a few deficiencies that existed previously. We acknowledge and regret these past failures and have taken these obligatory improvements seriously.” It didn’t name sexual assault survivors in its statement, because the federal report did, but said its failures were focused on “incorrect statistical reports in addition to required timely warnings and emergency notifications that weren’t sent.”
“It is a latest day at Liberty University,” the statement concluded, adding that it had invested a further $10 million in campus safety infrastructure.
The previous record Clery Act high-quality was $4.5 million for Michigan State University over its failures responding to sexual assault complaints against doctor Larry Nassar, in accordance with AP.
Former gymnast Rachael Denhollander, a survivor of Nassar’s abuse, was also involved lately in pushing Liberty to deal with its handling of sexual assaults. A lawyer and a Christian, she had taught classes at Liberty’s law school, but then in 2021 was initially barred from speaking at a prayer rally concerning the issue on campus. The school later allowed her to talk on the rally.
Liberty had previously described the federal government’s preliminary findings as stuffed with “significant errors” and “unsupported conclusions.”
But the ultimate federal report found that Liberty had made severe errors, including an incident where a girl reported being raped by a person she thought was armed, and whom she also reported beat her physically. The university’s investigator declared the case “unfounded,” stating that the “victim indicates that she consented to the sexual act.”
The department’s final report found a general attitude conflating assault with violations of the varsity’s honor code, referred to as “The Liberty Way.” It found from interviews that the glory code deterred reporting of crimes.
“Under The Liberty Way, acts of sexual misconduct, consensual sex, and alcohol policy violations are all top-line offenses,” the ultimate report reads. “As a result, the conduct monitoring and enforcement system established by The Liberty Way created an environment where people experiencing violence by the hands of an intimate partner or individuals who were incapacitated by alcohol or drugs might be subject to disciplinary motion in the event that they reported the offense.”
It stated that the department “doesn’t, in any regard, dictate or query the doctrinal views, missions, visions, or values of any institution,” but that it was investigating anything that may need “contributed to violations.”
As a part of the settlement with the federal government, Liberty agreed to spend a further $2 million on safety monitoring over the subsequent two years, during which era it should be under heightened federal monitoring. Liberty may have to implement “latest policies, procedures, training programs, and systems” to deal with deficiencies present in the investigation, or face review of its federal aid.
A consultant will oversee these federally mandated remediation efforts at Liberty, and the university may have to implement federally approved training for anyone involved in handling cases of sexual violence. Liberty must notify the Department of Education inside seven business days of any disciplinary motion against a staff member related to against the law or a violation of the university’s sexual misconduct policy.
In the statement responding to the high-quality, Liberty maintained that the DOE has treated the university unfairly. It called the investigation “unprecedented and arduous” and said the review of seven years of information was “essentially the most extensive review period of any higher education institution within the department’s history.”
“Many of the department’s methodologies, findings, and calculations within the report were drastically different from their historic treatment of other universities,” it said in its statement. “Liberty disagrees with this unfair treatment.”
Author Karen Swallow Prior, a longtime professor at the varsity who left in 2020, said on X that the varsity’s response was “grievous.”
“Rather than reveal real repentance and lament, @LibertyU whines that it was treated unfairly,” she wrote. “This high-quality is pocket change for the varsity.”
Some students have filed lawsuits against Liberty over its handling of sexual assault, and the varsity settled a case with 12 women in 2022.
Students and alumni have repeatedly spoken out about Liberty’s shortcomings on campus safety, with prayer rallies and protestors outside football games. Groups of scholars and alumni like Justice for Janes and Save 71 are pushing for changes on how the varsity handles sexual violence and other abuse.
“Liberty must be apologizing to the scholars who’ve been harmed through the years and demonstrating a commitment to vary,” Dustin Wahl, cofounder of Save 71, told the Associated Press. “Not because they’re being dragged along by the federal government, but because they genuinely wish to be transparent and fix the issues.”
The severity of the high-quality and remedial requirements “reflect the intense and longstanding nature of Liberty’s violations,” the Department of Education said in a press release.
