Steve Pettit resigns as president of Bob Jones University

Back in November 2022 old school fundamentalists at Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina tried to remove president Steve Pettit. Apparently the popular president was allowing the wrong kind of music in chapel, letting female athletes wear “immodest clothing,” participating in a bluegrass music band, and firing conservative professors. Under Pettit’s leadership, the school regained its federal-tax exempt status and earned accreditation. I wrote: “As an outsider observer, it is apparent that Pettit is trying to bring Bob Jones University into the 21st century.” That attempt to remove him failed. See our coverage here and here.

Apparently old school fundamentalist John Lewis, the chairman of the Bob Jones University board of trustees, has decided that if he could not get rid of Pettit, he would make his life miserable. On March 21, 2023, Pettit called for the removal of Lewis from the board’s executive committee. If this did not happen before the March 29 board meeting, Pettit said, he would resign. Below is an excerpt Pettit’s March 21st letter. It seems like the tipping point was Lewis’s handling of a Title IX case.

March 21, 2023

Dear BJU Board of Trustees:

Serving as the President of Bob Jones University has been one of the greatest privileges and honors of my life. Being a part of continuing the legacy of our Founder has been a great duty I have joyfully carried. I am also profoundly grateful for the incredible people I have had the privilege to serve alongside in this great work and the thousands of BJU alumni I have met along the way.

After much prayer and consideration, however, I have decided that I cannot continue to serve as the President of Bob Jones University if Dr. John Lewis remains Chairman of the Board.

This is not a conclusion I have reached lightly. When the Board reelected me to another three.year term on November 17, 2022, the Trustees overwhelmingly affirmed and endorsed my leadership and the direction of the University. I believed that the vote showed that we were united in purpose and direction, and my team and I rolled up our sleeves and went to work with the same objectives that we have pursued during my entire tenure as President under the chairmanship of Larry Jackson and then John Lewis.

In the months that followed, I realized that the unity I had hoped for was not to be. In fact, the dysfunction within the Board’s leadership increased, and I have become even more deeply concerned over recent decisions of the Board Chairman, who appears to be committed to taking the University in a new and unknown direction. I have, therefore, concluded it is not possible for me to remain as President of the University if Dr. Lewis remains Chairman. I have come to this conclusion for some of the following reasons.

First, although I have repeatedly urged the Chairman-both in private and before the Board.to pursue unity, he has not done so and, instead, has adopted a posture of secrecy and hostility toward the Board and the administration. For example, Executive Committee meetings have been moved to Bob Jones Ill’s residence. The Chairman forbade Trustees from telling the University’s professional parliamentarian and longstanding corporate c9unsel about a meeting of the Board that had been called in February 2023. Minutes oft he Executive Committee meetings often have not been timely prepared and provided to other Trustees.

Contrary to University policies, sensitive Board documentation has been stored outside the University’s secured network on a new computer purchased at the Chairman’s instruction. Our Board portal, Gavenda, was altered to prevent or hinder Trustees from printing documents.

All requests for Board information must now go through the Chairman exclusively. A new outside lawyer, Ashley Abel, has been retained, supposedly by the Board, but to my knowledge, the full Board has not even been made aware of that. Rather, Mr. Abel appears to be advising the Chairman and select members of the Executive Committee exclusively, and he refuses to communicate with or respond to other Trustees or the administration without the Chairman’s permission. None of this has been explained to the Board or me. By both his actions and his example, the Chairman has heightened, not alleviated, the disunity of the Board over the past several months.

Second, the Chairman has continued to display either an uncaring or cavalier disregard for the cause of troubling financial numbers triggered by the ongoing dysfunction and uncertainty. On a number of occasions over the past months, the University’s CFO has communicated to the Executive Committee and the Board about shortfalls in the University’s current and projected financials and about ongoing deficits in donations and enrollment that are directly linked to a loss of confidence in the University’s direction under the current Board leadership. On each occasion, the Chairman has either misunderstood or deliberately minimized the importance and relevance of the information, causing great concern among our administration that the Chairman seems completely disinterested in the financial stability of the University.

Third, poor decisions have been recently made by the Chairman concerning good board governance. In the signing of my contract, the Board agreed to board training. Recently, a key opportunity arose for board education and the building of good relationships with SACSCOC. The President of SACSCOC offered to come to the campus of BJU to speak to our Board of Trustees during our Spring meeting. The Chairman refused to accept the offer because he deemed the schedule to be too busy. I appealed the decision, and the Chairman turned it down a second time. Another disregard for good corporate governance happened recently when a Trustee was selected by the Executive Committee to serve on the board of the BJU Education Group, despite the fact that this method of selection was contrary to the Education Group’s Bylaws. When the Chairman learned that appointing the Trustee was a violation of the Bylaws and that the BJUEG Board of Trustees did not accept his appointment, the Chairman reacted with irritation and resistance to the decisions of the BJUEG Board.

Fourth, the Chairman has taken actions in the past few weeks to thwart the Trustees’ decision in February to report a matter to the University’s Title IX coordinator as required by law. This followed months of ignoring, minimizing, and delaying consideration of the issue, which arose from one Trustee’s alleged public comments to an alumnus in the presence of a faculty member about whether female students’ clothing and female student athletes’ uniforms accentuate their “boobs and butts.” The alumnus’ letter of complaint to the Board also alleged that the Trustee may have taken unconsented photographs of female students. I don’t know if these allegations are true or not, but our obligation was (and is) to treat them the same way we would any other such allegations, and in February, the Trustees agreed to refer the matter to the Title IX coordinator. The Chairman has recently taken the following steps to impede or obstruct this investigation:

• When the University’s Title IX coordinator requested relevant excerpts of Board meeting minutes, the Chairman responded eight days later by providing one set of meeting minutes that were almost entirely redacted (including any relevant discussion) and an excerpt from a single Executive Committee meeting containing two relevant sentences.
• He followed up on that by sending the Title IX coordinator a four-page letter plus attachments on March 17, 2023, that did the following:

o Ordered the coordinator to suspend and postpone the inquiry and investigation until a later date;

o Falsely accused me of working secretly with Positive BJU to weaponize the Title IX process in a coup d’etat of the Chairman;

o Falsely accused the Title IX coordinator of lying to the Board;

o Complained about the Notice of Formal Complaint that the coordinator had issued as required by law; and

o Falsely accused the University’s independent outside Title IX counsel of bias and conflict of interest.

I am not commenting on the merits or demerits of the Title IX claim. But, as the Trustees agreed in February, referring the matter to the Title IX coordinator to follow the normal course is the right (and legally required) thing to do. Impeding that process is not. The Chairman’s recent actions place the University and the Board in a perilous position.

The current direction is not sustainable. I am walking down a dark road with no light ahead. The future of BJU requires the Chairman and the President to work together. It is not happening now, and I can’t see it happening in the future. Normal communication and transparency must exist between the Chairman and the President in order for the University to function daily. Right now, things are dysfunctional, and our working relationship is irreparably broken.

Urgency demands that a decision must be made regarding the relationship between the Chairman and me if we are going to move the institutional mission forward.

Therefore, I cannot continue to work in a relationship with Dr. John Lewis as the Chairman of the Board. I serve at the pleasure of the Board, and I am willing and confident that I can continue to work with this Board, but I request that Dr. Lewis step down from his position as Chairman and off the BJU Executive Committee at or before the March 29, 2023, Board meeting, to be effective immediately.

I’m not oblivious to the effect my decision may have on the University’s students, employees, and executives, but the current situation is unsustainable for the University, its mission, its personnel, and my family. If Dr. Lewis remains the Chairman or a member of the Executive Committee, I am prepared to tender my resignation as President of Bob Jones University on March 31, 2023, to be effective immediately.

Respectfully,

Steve Pettit

The Bob Jones University board did not remove Lewis yesterday. According to reporting by Mark Wingfield at Baptist News Global, Lewis opened the BJU Spring board meeting by renewing the terms of two members of the six member Executive Committee who supported Lewis and then removing two members of the board who supported Pettit. The Pettit supporters then walked out of the room and, as Wingfield reports, “five new prospective trustees–previously unknown to the board, waited to be called from the nearby lobby.”

Wow! Now that is an old school fundamentalist coup!

As promised, Pettit resigned last night.

Bob Jones III, the 83-year-old retired president of the university and the grandson of the founder, might be pulling some strings here. In Fall 2022, Jones III said that “some embarrassing, antithetical things, historically uncharacteristic things, which would have never happened in the past, have occurred.” As Pettit noted in the letter above, Lewis was holding board meetings at Bob Jones III’s house. Hmm…

Here is Pettit’s resignation letter:

“Today I notified the Bob Jones University Board of Trustees that I am resigning from my position as president of BJU at the completion of the academic year on Friday, May 5, 2023.

It has been one of the greatest privileges of my life to serve as the president of Bob Jones University. My memories of the wonderful people, the incredible student body, and the perpetual blessings of God will linger with me throughout the rest of my life.

From the moment I began, I have joyfully served the entire administration, faculty, and staff. They have been faithful and humble servants committed to the mission of BJU. I am deeply humbled by the things God has done over the past nine years. Whatever good has happened it is because of the blessings of God and the humble service of His devoted people.

I believe this is the Lord’s direction and the best step to take at this time. I encourage the Board, the administration, and the entire BJU community to continue our commitment to offering a world-class education with a biblical worldview.

I am thankful that the Board of Trustees has given me the privilege of serving BJU these last nine years. My hope is that the Lord will bless the Board of Trustees as they seek to follow His will in the future.”

Today at 11:30am, Pettit discussed his resignation with students:

A petition to remove Lewis from his position as chairman of the board has over 2,700 signatures.

It appears that there are powerful forces on the Bob Jones University board of trustees who do not want to bring the university into the 21st century.