Seth Udinski, FISM News
In the last year, FISM News has followed the troubling accounts coming out of Liberty University, one of the largest evangelical Christian universities in the United States, involving the lewd behavior of former president Jerry Falwell Jr. The Virginia-based university finds itself in hot water once again, after 50 former students and staff have accused the school of covering up sexual abuse.
According to a report released on Monday, the university used its code of ethics, known among students as the “Liberty Way,” to silence reports of sexual abuse.
According to the victims, the school alleged that the instances of abuse occurred because students were partying, drinking, and engaging in sexual activity, thereby going against the “Liberty Way” and giving the school ample reason to silence the accusations instead of reporting them. Some of the alleged victims claim the school did not give them an option to report incidents of abuse to police.
One former staffer who was terminated earlier this year said, “Concerns about sexual assault would go up the chain and then die.”
A former student claimed that when she reported a sexual assault incident from 2017, she provided photos of her bodily injuries that were then removed from the report by school authorities for their “explicit nature.”
Liberty University responded saying it would not comment on the intricacies of the allegations. The statement reads:
Liberty University prefers not to issue public comment on litigation, but the university would like to affirm its commitment to take all allegations of sexual assault seriously and in accordance with the law.