Protecting the Brand: Liberty University and the DOE
Understanding the Clery violations
I had written in Monday’s newsletter that I would be addressing Barbara McQuade’s new book about disinformation in today’s post. As often happens when I plan a week ahead, the news intrudes on my plans. When the news broke on Tuesday that Liberty University had agreed to a $14 million settlement with the Department of Education over “material and ongoing violations” of the Clery Act, I knew it deserved a deeper look.
The Clery Act was signed into law by George H.W. Bush in 1990. It requires universities to maintain records of crimes on or around campus regardless of how those cases are eventually adjudicated. It also provides mechanisms for notifying students, faculty, and staff of crucial events that had occurred.
News broke last fall that the DOE was investigating Liberty over problems with their Clery reports over recent years. The settlement reached this week was the result of that investigation.
The Liberty case provides an excellent illustration of what I referred to in my book as “protecting the brand at all costs.” Let’s begin with the institution’s response to the DOE’s findings and work backwards. The institution released a statement, which begins as follows:
The Department’s Clery Act Program Review covered more than seven years and is, by far, the most extensive review period of any higher education institution in the Department’s history of published reviews. Many of the Department’s methodologies, findings, and calculations in the report were drastically different from their historic treatment of other universities. Liberty disagrees with this unfair treatment. Nevertheless, the university was able to negotiate a final settlement and outline the terms of the Department’s two-year post-monitoring process in a collaborative manner.
Liberty University initiated an unprecedented negotiation to spend an additional $2 million of university funds, earmarked for new campus safety improvements. The university insisted that the additional funds be a condition of the settlement to be used for the benefit of our Liberty community rather than being sent to Washington, D.C. The focus of the additional investments will be on compliance and campus safety initiatives to ensure strong and sustainable Title IX and Clery Act programs. This first-of-its-kind settlement will be added to the more than $10 million that Liberty University has spent on significant advancements since 2022.
While the university maintains that we have repeatedly endured selective and unfair treatment by the Department, the university also concurs there were numerous deficiencies that existed in the past. We acknowledge and regret these past failures and have taken these necessary improvements seriously. Examples of shortcomings include incorrect statistical reports as well as required timely warnings and emergency notifications that were not sent. We have since addressed these errors through corrective measures, educational programming, changed policies and procedures, enhanced governance, increased expert staffing, additional investment in facilities, equipment, and software, and our renewed focus on student safety with our Title IX office being placed in the heart of the campus.
Right out of the gate, the argument that the DOE used different methodologies when evaluation Liberty’s case over seven years. After highlighting some changes made, the response again repeats concerns about “selective and unfair treatment.”1 The shortcomings acknowledged involve “incorrect statistical reports as well as timely warnings and emergency notifications that were not sent.”
As the Clery Center observes, these shortcomings are actually the key elements of the act. The whole point is to provide current and potential students with information that allows them to know what is going on at the institution, to provide the community with notifications of major violations (e.g., rape, assault, external threats) so they can remain safe.
Of course, that theme of selective enforcement plays into concerns about religious bias. In late January, Representative Virginia Foxx (R, TN), chair of the House Education Committee, worried about the investigation into Liberty:
“We write to express deep concern about how the U.S. Department of Education seems to be targeting religious institutions through program reviews and fines that greatly exceed established and documented precedent..”
Why would the DOE focus on bureaucratic failures by a Christian university if not as yet another example of government “weaponization”, especially against people of faith?
The answer is that a complaint was filed with the DOE in May of 2021. In July of 2021 and April of 2022, female students filed suit against Liberty. A ProPublica report from the fall of 2021, outlined the concerns of Liberty students:
Three students, including Axley, recalled being made to sign forms acknowledging possible violations of the Liberty Way after they sought to file complaints about sexual assaults. Others say they were also warned against reporting what had happened to them. Students say that even Liberty University police officers discouraged victims from pursuing charges after reporting assaults.
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A few days later, Axley received another email from the university. It said that as the case was moving ahead for a final decision, Axley needed to sign a document acknowledging that she could be found to have violated the university’s code of conduct. The Liberty Way covers nearly all aspects of a student’s life and includes bans on drinking and “being in any state of undress with a member of the opposite sex.”
Liberty students are to abide by “The Liberty Way”, an honor code in which they agree to avoid alcohol, drugs, and premarital sex. This makes date rape very difficult to deal with if the incident occurred following a party. Blame fell upon the women reporting.
The Washington Post reported on the latter case:
At a time when Liberty University is already under scrutiny for its handling of reports of sexual assaults, a former student has come forward alleging that the school failed to investigate her claim of rape — and retaliated against her for reporting it.
The lawsuit claims that the school has a pattern of weaponizing the student code of conduct against victims of sexual assault by leading them to fear that reporting an incident will get them in trouble for violating campus rules.
The Times story cited earlier refers to this as “a culture of silence.” The DOE detailed finding shows how this worked:
The Department has determined that victims of sexual crime that occur on the University’s Clery Geography are often fearful of reporting their incidents. For instance, the Department has found that numerous victims of sexual assault have been reluctant to speak up about their assaults because of fear of reprisal. In fact, over the course of this review period, several sexual assault victims were punished for violating the student code of conduct known as “The Liberty Way,” while their assailants were left unpunished. Consequently, victims of sexual assault often felt dissuaded by Liberty administration’s reputation for punishing sexual assault survivors rather than helping them. Such fears created a culture of silence where sexual assaults commonly went unreported. In addition, several whistleblower faculty members who have spoken up about the University’s failure to fix the problem of fear of reprisal among sexual assault victims were intimidated or terminated in retaliation for speaking up. This has resulted in a systemic apprehension among Liberty’s workforce about raising employee concerns about the University’s treatment of sexual assault victims and other campus safety-related issues.
This is a significant finding that begins to answer the question of why Liberty was investigated and fined. News reports drew parallels between the Liberty case, the Michigan State Larry Nassar and Penn State’s Jerry Sandusky. When an institution has been in the news over some serious infractions, it’s not uncommon for administrative agencies like the DOE to investigate how such things could be reconciled with the Clery reports filed by the institution.
Liberty’s focus on uncommon methodology and lax record keeping may be true as far as it goes. But unless Liberty and like institutions can address the underlying cultural concerns, there is little hope for change over the long term.2
The Liberty press release closes with a letter from president Dondi Costin. In his letter, he acknowledges “numerous compliance difficulties”. He also says that there will be no changes to the Amnesty Policy. He closes his letter with exactly the kind of language one expects when focused on protecting the brand.
Most importantly, as family, we want you to be proud of Liberty’s future. To that end, we ask that you feel empowered to share with us any recommendations as we continue to improve our campus. Additionally, we ask you to pray for our campus body, which includes the administration, staff, professors, and students, as we move forward together as one university committed to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. We thank you for making Liberty University a better place, and we look forward to seeing what God has in store for the days ahead. The best is yet to come!3
One of the major candidates for president often makes similar claims.
There are parallels here to recent issues in the Southern Baptist Convention.
Didn’t Kimberly Guilfoyle ruin this phrase forever?
A helpful summary, John! Thanks for the detail!