(Virginia’s Liberty University has been fined $14 million for allegedly failing to report campus crime statistics.
“The university did not meet its agreed-upon regulatory responsibilities in numerous and serious ways,” according to a report from the Department of Education. “Such failures call the willingness and the ability of the university to meet its obligations to its students, employees, the campus community, and the department into serious question.”
The DOE delivered its largest fine for violating the Clery Act, requiring higher education institutions to “produce and distribute Annual Security Reports containing their campus crime statistics,” following an investigation that included allegations that it mishandled of victims of sexual assault.
Multiple areas of “noncompliance were identified” in the findings, the DOE claimed, going as far as to say campus community members were subjected to considerable “harm” as a result of the violations.
“This finding is supported by the numerous and serious deficiencies identified in this report,” the DOE said. “It must be noted that many of these violations and their impacts contributed to, and in some cases caused, significant harm to members of the campus community.”
The harassment of the school, one of just a handful nationwide known for its pro-Christian and conservative leanings, was reminiscent of the Obama-era mandates deployed by the DOE, in coordination with the Justice Department, under Attorney General Eric Holder.
The rules threatened schools into compliance with strict policies that intruded into many aspects of campus culture previously left up to the schools themselves, giving the perception that the government was seeking to interfere and exert pressure on campus culture as part of a broader effort to indoctrinate students.
Among the alarming travesties were new campus bylaws that removed due process for male students accused of rape, sometimes leaving their academic careers in limbo, even over spurious and unproven allegations.
Notably, one such case promoted by the DOJ’s Civil Rights arm became a cover-story for Rolling Stone magazine recounting horrific stories of gang rape in a University of Virginia fraternity house as revealed by a profile subject named “Jackie.”
Unfortnuately, the damning account proved to be entirely fabricated. The fraternity and an administrator smeared in the story sued for libel, winning significant settlements.
Liberty, located about an hour’s drive southwest of U.Va., in Lynchburg, was founded in 1971 by Jerry Falwell Sr. and has been considered to have one of the safest campuses in the country. The university has about 16,000 students on campus and enrollment inclusive of online exceeding 135,000.
Headline USA’s Ben Sellers contributed to this report.
