According to the allegations, a Christian school did not inform the authorities about on-campus crimes.
After a federal investigation revealed numerous failures to report on-campus crimes, students are reacting negatively to a record fine of$ 14 million against Liberty University.
As part of a lawsuit with the Department of Education, the secret Christian organization in Virginia just agreed to pay the fine. A national investigation found” major violations” regarding campus crime reporting and various health issues, according to a media release from the office.
A department representative told The College Fix in a recent email that” the U.S. Department of Education is committed to holding all institutions accountable for serving the best interests of students and other stakeholders.” ” We take our oversight seriously, observe the information where they lead, and will not be dissuaded from enforcing the law and protecting individuals, administrative staff, and the public”.
The office determined that Liberty, one of the nation’s largest Christian schools, disregarded “numerous sexual assault prevention and response needs of the Clery Act, such as providing victims of sexual assault with suitable notice of their rights, options, and deficiencies in the investigations and adjudicative method.”
Also, the university allegedly kept inaccurate and incomplete casual disclosures, violated the Violence Against Women Act, failed to properly define and report crime statistics to the federal government, failed to challenge emergency notifications and proper warnings in accordance with federal regulations, and kept inaccurate and incomplete casual disclosures, according to the department.
Students who spoke with The Fix via social media had a mixed response to the fine.
Laura Rowland, a sports medicine major, claimed on Instagram that it was about time the university received reprimands.
” If you cover up assaults it’s going to come back and bite you”, Rowland wrote. ” It’s ridiculous they just implemented the blue light call boxes. Additionally, it was rare to be granted that the “amnesty” part of reporting abuse and assault cases was done. I believe that it should be the least they should do to pay a fine.
Will Cash, a communications major, claimed he had read articles about the crimes Liberty was accused of concealing.
” I think what the university did was very irresponsible. Covering up sexual assaults just because it is not in the’ Liberty way’ is shameful”, Cash wrote via Instagram. A student should never feel comfortable enough to go to their trusted advisor and confess their sexual assault at any time, and then to cover it up is even worse.
MORE: Biden administration targets largest Christian university, fines it$ 37M
In addition, some people criticized the school and expressed outrage.
Victoria D’Addesi, a law graduate, said she believes the federal government should concentrate on bigger issues.
One in four students in other schools are raped. One in four. Why does n’t the government put all of its effort into those schools? D’addesi wrote in an Instagram message. ” And of course I concur that Liberty should n’t have handled it badly. That should not have happened. But$ 14 million? When there’s not even a safety issue? If there was a real safety issue that was n’t being addressed, that would make more sense.
One in four female students are victims of sexual assault, according to some surveys, but the validity of those findings has been questioned.
Others who told The Fix they were unaware of the situation and felt too uneducated to comment outnumber these students ‘ responses.
In the meantime, the university police and media offices did not respond to numerous phone, email, and in person comment requests over the past two weeks. The Fix was contacted about their plans to make Liberty a safer campus for students and their upcoming actions.
University President Dondi Costin ( pictured ) informed students about the department’s investigation in a March 5 email. His message mentioned the Clery Act and “numerous compliance deficiencies”, but not the Violence Against Women Act or the investigation’s findings regarding its treatment of sexual assault survivors.
Costin also mentioned the fine at a convocation ceremony on March 6 and summarized the reprimand for” sloppy record keeping and inattention — certainly not malfeasance.”
The leadership team immediately took action when they discovered that we were not fully in compliance with that law, and what they did was discover what was wrong,” Costin said. ” We acknowledged past mistakes, and we fixed it”.
Before the department’s investigation began, Costin claimed Liberty also set up a task force to make the university the “best possible and safest campus.”
The university acknowledges that there have been numerous shortcomings that the department has experienced in the past, despite the university’s claim that we have repeatedly experienced selective and unfair treatment. In a news release released in March, the university stated that it “regrets and acknowledges these past failures” and that it has taken these necessary improvements seriously.
As part of the settlement, Liberty will spend$ 2 million to improve campus safety, according to the university’s news release.
According to the department, the federal government will continue to monitor the situation through 2026 and commission an audit by an outside company” to ensure that the school delivers on promised improvements.”
The department could revoke federal student aid programs and pursue administrative sanctions against Liberty, it said, if more violations are discovered by investigators.
The$ 14 million fine is the largest ever under the Clery Act, according to the department.
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IMAGE: Katherine Welles/Shutterstock
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