Back in October 2023 we brought your attention to Liberty University’s failure to keep its students safe. One campus safety consultant called the U.S. Department of Education’s review the “the most blistering Clery report I have ever read. Ever…I cannot think of a single other comparable case in the entire 32-year history of the Clery Act.” New York Times columnist David French wrote that Liberty’s failures were much worse than anything happening in the Ivy League.
Today we learn that the U.S. Department of Education, based on the October 2023 Clery report, has fined Liberty University $16 million. I am guessing we won’t hear too much about this from the Standing for Freedom Center.
Here is Chis Quintana at USA Today:
Liberty University will face a $16 million penalty for creating a culture where students were afraid to report when they suffered sexual violence.Â
The financial sanction, announced on Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Education, is the largest of its kind.Â
“Through today’s action against Liberty, we’re sending the message that we will hold schools accountable if they fail to follow the important requirements of the Clery Act,” said Richard Cordray, the head of the agency’s Federal Student Aid office.
In addition to a $14 million fine, the Christian university will be required to spend $2 million over the next two years “for on-campus safety improvements and compliance enhancements.” And it will be under federal monitoring through April 2026. The agency conducted its investigation under the Clery Act, a federal law that requires universities to track crimes on their campus and warn students of danger. Â
USA TODAY obtained a preliminary Education Department report in 2023 that found, “victims of sexual assault felt dissuaded by Liberty administration’s reputation for punishing sexual assault survivors rather than helping them.”
The university has previously challenged the department’s preliminary findings, saying in a statement that they included “significant errors, misstatements, and unsupported conclusions.” University President Dondi Costin also told Fox News in October 2023 that the institution was being unfairly targeted by the federal government. Some House Republicans, including chair of the education committee, Virginia Foxx, North Carolina, similarly questioned earlier this year if the agency was, “targeting religious institutions,” and requested a briefing about its investigation.
Costin had said the university was facing a $37.5 million fine – more than double the settled fine. The Education Department had previously declined to comment on the investigation, including speculation around potential fines.
The May report found that college officials overlooked and failed to record repeated instances of sexual violence on its campus, and that the school failed to warn students about potential threats. It detailed university officials’ attempts to cover their tracks by seeking help from technology staff to delete hard drives. The allegations even included a former Liberty president accused of rape – an incident that didn’t appear in a daily campus crime log.Â
The report also referenced a staff member who continued to work at the university despite being accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women. USA TODAY in November identified that man as Keith Anderson, who is listed as the executive director of the student health center and wellness initiatives.
Read the rest here.
The official Liberty statement is titled “Liberty University and Department of Education Finalize Clery Program Review.” Here it is:
Today, Liberty University and the U.S. Department of Education (“Department”) have finalized the Clery Act Program Review and entered into a settlement agreement in the amount of $14 million that marks the end of an unprecedented and arduous process that has been ongoing since February 2022. Liberty is firmly committed to Clery Act compliance and the safety and security of our students and staff without exception.
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.
Additionally, the university has been able to leverage technology and process changes to assist with the timeliness and transparency of our response to crimes to best keep our community informed. Our reporting mechanisms have increased, and the implementation of the Champion Safe mobile app has allowed students, staff, parents, and visitors to have “safety at their fingertips.” We are steadfast in our pledge to focus on continued compliance in this area, and we have implemented strategic changes in leadership to place a stronger emphasis on overarching accountability by establishing the Office of University Compliance that will directly oversee Clery and Title IX governance along with all other areas of university compliance.
It is a new day at Liberty University. We now have a model Clery program for compliance with many campus improvements that will benefit our students and staff for years to come. We will continue to work in cooperation with the Department to prioritize student safety and to advocate for a fair, consistent, and principled standard of Clery compliance that is applied equally to all universities without prejudice.
Liberty believes that the U.S. Department of Education treated them unfairly. Religious persecution is implied. It is worth noting that the program review began seven years ago, during the Trump administration. As a result, claims of witch hunts or religious persecution will be hard to swallow. Didn’t Betsy DeVos have Liberty’s back?