Liberty University will face a $16 million penalty for creating a culture in which students are afraid to report sexual violence.
The financial penalty, announced by the US Department of Education on Tuesday, is the largest of its kind.
“With today’s action against Liberty, we are sending a message that we will hold schools accountable if they fail to follow the important requirements of the Clery Act,” said Richard Cordray, head of the agency’s Federal Office of Student Aid.
In addition to the $14 million fine, the Christian university will be required to spend $2 million over the next two years “for campus safety improvements and enhanced compliance.” He will be under federal probation until April 2026. The agency conducted its investigation under the Clery Act, a federal law that requires universities to track crimes on their campuses and warn students of danger.
USA TODAY obtained a preliminary Education Department report in 2023 that found that “sexual assault victims were frustrated by the Liberty administration's reputation for punishing rather than helping sexual assault survivors.”
The final report was scathing about Liberty's failure to create a safe environment. She cited rules the university had developed itself that worked against this, including Freedom Road – a code of conduct for students that punishes drinking, drugs and sexual acts.
“As a result, victims of sexual assault often felt frustrated by the Liberty administration’s reputation for punishing rather than helping survivors of sexual assault,” the report said. “Such fears have created a culture of silence where sexual assaults typically go unreported.”
investigation:Feds say Liberty University created 'fear of retaliation' for survivors of sexual violence
In a statement issued Tuesday, Liberty said that although it “endured selective and unfair treatment by the department, the university also agrees that there are many deficiencies that existed in the past.” These errors included “incorrect statistical reports as well as timely warnings requested and emergency notifications that were not sent,” she said.
“We acknowledge and deeply regret these errors and have since corrected them in a way that allows us to maintain compliance in each of these areas,” Donde Costin, Liberty's president, said in a written statement. “Today is a new day at Liberty University. We are committed to prioritizing the safety and security of our students and employees without exception.”
The university had previously objected to the department's initial findings, saying in a previous statement that they included “major errors, false data, and unsupported conclusions.”
The university faces a $37.5 million fine, more than double the fine that was settled, Kostin said.
He also told Fox News in October 2023 that the foundation was being unfairly targeted by the federal government. Likewise, some House Republicans, including Education Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, asked earlier this year whether the agency was “targeting religious institutions” and requested a briefing on its investigations.
The university went so far as to file its own Freedom of Information request seeking similar action against other institutions. However, in an FAQ referenced in Tuesday's statement, it acknowledged that the resulting documents “in no way emerge as new precedent or new computational methodology as was described to us and which we will see.”
The final report concluded that college officials ignored and failed to record repeated cases of sexual violence on its campus, and that the school failed to warn students of potential threats. It detailed university officials' attempts to cover their tracks by asking technology staff for help to delete hard drives. The allegations even included a former Liberty Party president accused of rape, an incident that did not appear in the campus' daily crime log.
The report also cited one employee 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 executive director of the Center for Student Health and Wellness Initiatives. The final report notes that federal investigators learned late last year that Anderson “was terminated at least in part due to the filing of two new credible complaints of sexual misconduct against him.”
Liberty is one of the nation's most prominent Christian universities and a mainstay among prominent Republican figures. Jerry Falwell, a prominent televangelist and conservative figure, started the school in 1971. Based in Virginia, the university has grown thanks to its online students — about 93,000 students combined — and has received nearly $880 million in federal financial aid for its students.
The institution's image as a Christian sanctuary has been challenged in recent years, including by the actions of its leadership. Jerry Falwell Jr., who took over after his father's death in 2007 and helped shape it into the massive corporation it is today, resigned in 2020 after a sex scandal involving him, his wife and another man.
About two dozen survivors in 2021 filed a lawsuit against Liberty over its role in creating a “campus environment where sexual assaults and rape were most likely to occur.” All but two of these women settled at the University of Lynchburg, Virginia, in 2022, although the details of that agreement remain private.
Sarah Mays didn't settle down. She said she was intimidated into retracting her report that she was attacked by several men in 2001. Mays said the university is not facing “Christian persecution,” but rather the students are suffering as a result because of Liberty's administration. She told USA TODAY last year that she was skeptical that the financial penalty would have much impact on the school.
“A small fine won’t make them change their ways,” Mays said. “They can recover any amount of money with the touch of a finger.”
The Department of Education frequently investigates universities' compliance with Title IX, a federal anti-sex discrimination law intended to protect students from sexual harassment. Universities can lose federal funding if they do not comply, although no university has faced that outcome.
However, the state agency has issued fines to schools in the past for not meeting provisions of the Clery Act. Among the most notable was a $2.4 million fine against Pennsylvania State University in connection with Jerry Sandusky, the former assistant football coach convicted of molesting several children. Previously, the largest penalty to date was the $4.5 million fine Michigan State faced in connection with its treatment of sports doctor Larry Nassar and the women he victimized.
From 2000 to 2023, the federal government has issued nearly $20 million in fines related to the Clery investigations, said S. Daniel Carter, president of the University Advisory Group for Educational Campus Safety Advisors and an expert on the Clery Act.
He was also skeptical about claims that the investigation or fine was linked to Liberty's religious affiliation. Instead, he said, the size of the fine likely reflects the institution's significant financial resources. The college's endowment is worth $2 billion — one of the largest in the country.
Consider Mission University, a small private school in Springfield, Missouri, that the elder Falwell attended when it was called Baptist Bible College. She was fined $35,000 in January 2023 in connection with the Cleary investigation.
Carter also said that the allegations raised in the Liberty case are different from any other allegations he has seen raised.
“The bottom line is that this is an indication that the department takes enforcement of the sexual misconduct provisions of the Clery Act seriously,” Carter said.
Chris Quintana is a USA TODAY investigative staff reporter with a background in higher education and student loans. Contact him at cquintana@usatoday.com, @CquintanaDC on Instagram and X, or via Signal at 202-308-9021.
