The Chronicle for Higher Education revealed that the evangelical college, Liberty University, has been breaking what is known as the Clery Act, which mandates reporting campus crime data and informing students of those statistics. Among those things include creating a culture of silence that left students terrified to report their sexual assaults on campus out of fear they'd be punished.
Liberty University has had a rough few years after its president, the son of its founder, Jerry Falwell Jr., was involved in a scandal that included both sex and corruption. Now it appears the school is facing another problem, the revelation that in some cases they destroyed evidence of reports given to the school about crimes on their campuses.
Liberty has among its mandates a code of conduct called "The Liberty Way."
"The Liberty University community promotes chastity for its unwed students," is one of the requirements according to the code of conduct.
While the University strictly bars sexual assault, sexual harassment, sexual violence, dating violence, domestic violence and other such behavior, if the victim of the attacks also violates the "chastity" rule it creates a dilemma for those sexually assaulted.
Among the notes are the details that the debate was “further complicated by the university’s amorphous amnesty policy.” The amnesty policy encourages students to come forward about their own violations and they won't be disciplined.
"A student(s) admitting to being involved in behavior contrary to the Student Honor code after being asked by a staff or faculty member about their violation of the policy, or during an investigation of the violating behavior to which they admit, is not a Self-Report under this policy," the code of conduct says.
Essentially, a rapist could come forward about their crime and name their victim. If the victim doesn't come forward, he or she is the one punished for violating the so-called "chastity" rule.
It's unclear if the amnesty problems were addressed in the Fall 2022 update of the code as only that version is available on the University's website.
The report alleges, "Liberty’s amnesty policy, officials told department investigators, 'was poorly defined and barely communicated to campus community members,' including resident advisers charged with enforcing The Liberty Way."
"A campus amnesty policy is supposed to allow victims and witnesses of crimes to receive support from their institution without being punished," The Chronicle says later in the report.
Internally, University officials were in conflict about the amnesty policy, it continues. It resulted in a "muddled" code.
“Based on interviews with students and employees, the department finds that The Liberty Way effectively acts as a deterrent to optimal levels of crime reporting,” the report alleges.
“These conditions combined to ensure that the university did not communicate a clear message about the policy,” to community members and resident advisers, the report continues, “and how, if at all, it aligned with The Liberty Way.”
To make matters worse, the report also revealed records were "selectively destroyed" when they should have been kept.
"Plaintiffs in a 2021 Title IX lawsuit against Liberty over its handling of sexual assault allegations reported that they could not access some key records for their case, while other records from the same sources remained available," the details claim.
It adds: “Senior officials in HR sought the assistance of IT staff to wipe certain computer hard drives on April 26, 2022, the very week that the review team first visited the campus.”
“The fact that many of those records were retained while some of the most relevant ones were destroyed raises a special concern for the department,” the report continues. “Individuals reported that they were unable to acquire certain records, including but not limited to email messages, that were needed to advance their cases or for other lawful and legitimate purposes related to their educational or career pursuits.”
Read the top five worst things found in the report at the Chronicle.
