Looks like they are at the center of the biggest scandal in the history of higher education (and that's saying something)...estimated to be a nearly $40 million dollar penalty from the Dept of Ed coming:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/22/opini...ation.html

If you're not a NY Times subscriber, https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10...University

you could have just left out the first 3 words in the thread title.

I've disliked Liberty for their milking of the student loan system and basically being a for-profit school in form but not function.

But let's be fair, I'm betting there's a lot of schools out there right now scrambling to make sure their i's are dotted and t's are crossed on this. If there was going to be a school made an example of it was going to be an evangelical school. And of course David French has had a hate boner for evangelicals for the last 7 years or so so I take how he frames the gravity of this with a grain of salt.

BTW, I wouldn't rank it ahead of the fake courses scandal at UNC or the Larry Nassar thing.

As a Christian myself I have plenty of issues with how Falwell Jr. and others let Liberty turn into what it is on different levels. They also need to be held accountable and punished for any wrongdoing that has taken place without exception. However I do take issue with one thing stated. I don't have an issue with Liberty having students take Christian Studies courses as part of their curriculum and have students submit to an honor code to attend there. As a religious university one should expect them to maintain some level of religious standard. Like I said there are plenty of things Liberty has done in my opinion that is a stain on the Christian community they supposedly represent and it needs to be cleansed deeply at all levels but to call their standards authoritarian seems a bit out of pocket unless I am misunderstanding what is actually being said.

(10-23-2023 10:36 AM)EigenEagle Wrote:  I've disliked Liberty for their milking of the student loan system and basically being a for-profit school in form but not function.

But let's be fair, I'm betting there's a lot of schools out there right now scrambling to make sure their i's are dotted and t's are crossed on this. If there was going to be a school made an example of it was going to be an evangelical school. And of course David French has had a hate boner for evangelicals for the last 7 years or so so I take how he frames the gravity of this with a grain of salt.

BTW, I wouldn't rank it ahead of the fake courses scandal at UNC or the Larry Nassar thing.

You should read more of the details then, it's absolutely worse than any academic cheating scandal. They covered up rapes...but if academics are your thing, there's plenty of those problems there too.

$40 million is a drop in the bucket to them isn't it?

(10-23-2023 10:44 AM)ButlerGSU Wrote:  

(10-23-2023 10:36 AM)EigenEagle Wrote:  I've disliked Liberty for their milking of the student loan system and basically being a for-profit school in form but not function.

But let's be fair, I'm betting there's a lot of schools out there right now scrambling to make sure their i's are dotted and t's are crossed on this. If there was going to be a school made an example of it was going to be an evangelical school. And of course David French has had a hate boner for evangelicals for the last 7 years or so so I take how he frames the gravity of this with a grain of salt.

BTW, I wouldn't rank it ahead of the fake courses scandal at UNC or the Larry Nassar thing.

You should read more of the details then, it's absolutely worse than any academic cheating scandal. They covered up rapes...but if academics are your thing, there's plenty of those problems there too.

Look at who their AD is. Surprised?

Liberty was controversial well before the last decade of scandals and it has never had anything to do with religion. Liberty has used religion to cloak their issues/misdeeds.

It should have gone bankrupt 15 years ago. It has been morally bankrupt for much longer than that.

Credit to Liberty (and Baylor) for consistently railing about America's moral decline while embodying it.

"Practice the moral decline you preach."

I haven't read the article on Liberty, but there are a lot of things going on at numerous college campuses throughout the country these days that are terrible. Things such as riots breaking out when a person with a different political view is invited to the campus to speak. When a female athlete comes to speak out against men being allowed to compete in women's sports and she needs to be escorted out by security before the event has hardly even started. People (including at least one faculty member) protesting in favor of the group that attacked Israel, raped women, killed (and beheaded) babies, etc.

It is sad what so many of these universities have become. If Liberty has done wrong, then they should be held accountable for it. I just wish that the others would clean their act up as well.

(10-23-2023 10:44 AM)ButlerGSU Wrote:  

(10-23-2023 10:36 AM)EigenEagle Wrote:  I've disliked Liberty for their milking of the student loan system and basically being a for-profit school in form but not function.

But let's be fair, I'm betting there's a lot of schools out there right now scrambling to make sure their i's are dotted and t's are crossed on this. If there was going to be a school made an example of it was going to be an evangelical school. And of course David French has had a hate boner for evangelicals for the last 7 years or so so I take how he frames the gravity of this with a grain of salt.

BTW, I wouldn't rank it ahead of the fake courses scandal at UNC or the Larry Nassar thing.

You should read more of the details then, it's absolutely worse than any academic cheating scandal. They covered up rapes...but if academics are your thing, there's plenty of those problems there too.

I have to believe EigenEagle just had an incomplete understanding of all the details but perhaps some folks think athletes getting fake grades is worse than letting rapists (students and administrators) walk around freely.

(10-23-2023 11:01 AM)ODU BBALL Wrote:  I haven't read the article on Liberty, but there are a lot of things going on at numerous college campuses throughout the country these days that are terrible. Things such as riots breaking out when a person with a different political view is invited to the campus to speak. When a female athlete comes to speak out against men being allowed to compete in women's sports and she needs to be escorted out by security before the event has hardly even started. People (including at least one faculty member) protesting in favor of the group that attacked Israel, raped women, killed (and beheaded) babies, etc.

It is sad what so many of these universities have become. If Liberty has done wrong, then they should be held accountable for it. I just wish that the others would clean their act up as well.

You not like Universities being filled with liberal hypocrites isn't an institutional issue. University's are likely to be filled with protesters full of self righteous anger just like Trump rallies are going to filled with self dillusional "Patriots". You can't just add in all the things you don't like about US society and equate them. First amendment is a thing and all these jackasses have the right to be themselves fully on view for the public to see.

We're talking about the leaders of a University putting their community's reputation ahead of victims of sexual assaults. That's not an opinion you don't like. That's creating an unsafe environment on your campus. Do more sexual assaults happen on Liberty's campus than other places? No. But their leaders DID go to great pains to make the it appear that it wasn't happening at all.

(10-23-2023 11:01 AM)ODU BBALL Wrote:  I haven't read the article on Liberty, but there are a lot of things going on at numerous college campuses throughout the country these days that are terrible. Things such as riots breaking out when a person with a different political view is invited to the campus to speak. When a female athlete comes to speak out against men being allowed to compete in women's sports and she needs to be escorted out by security before the event has hardly even started. People (including at least one faculty member) protesting in favor of the group that attacked Israel, raped women, killed (and beheaded) babies, etc.

It is sad what so many of these universities have become. If Liberty has done wrong, then they should be held accountable for it. I just wish that the others would clean their act up as well.

(10-23-2023 11:25 AM)mturn017 Wrote:  

(10-23-2023 11:01 AM)ODU BBALL Wrote:  I haven't read the article on Liberty, but there are a lot of things going on at numerous college campuses throughout the country these days that are terrible. Things such as riots breaking out when a person with a different political view is invited to the campus to speak. When a female athlete comes to speak out against men being allowed to compete in women's sports and she needs to be escorted out by security before the event has hardly even started. People (including at least one faculty member) protesting in favor of the group that attacked Israel, raped women, killed (and beheaded) babies, etc.

It is sad what so many of these universities have become. If Liberty has done wrong, then they should be held accountable for it. I just wish that the others would clean their act up as well.

You not like Universities being filled with liberal hypocrites isn't an institutional issue. University's are likely to be filled with protesters full of self righteous anger just like Trump rallies are going to filled with self dillusional "Patriots". You can't just add in all the things you don't like about US society and equate them. First amendment is a thing and all these jackasses have the right to be themselves fully on view for the public to see.

We're talking about the leaders of a University putting their community's reputation ahead of victims of sexual assaults. That's not an opinion you don't like. That's creating an unsafe environment on your campus. Do more sexual assaults happen on Liberty's campus than other places? No. But their leaders DID go to great pains to make the it appear that it wasn't happening at all.

ODU emails the entire university distro when there is a robbery, beating or murder near campus. It happened with sad and embarrassing frequency in my time but at least the school didn’t suppress the truth about violent crime. As an institution it takes a special kind of greed and coldheartedness to erase victimized students. Not to mention arrogance considering it’s a blatant violation of federal law.

To be clear this was first reported on years ago, there's a ProPublica article that's very good but kind of hard to read detailing a lot of the accounts. The size of the settlement being offered by the Govt seems pretty mindblowing when put into context. When added to the very funny (in my opinion) and extremely hypocritical exploits of Falwell, Jr in more recent years I can definitely understand why opinion pieces by other Christian conservatives like the author of the op ed in the OP are being written. Hopefully, for the schools sake, there's a genuine reform from top to bottom with the exodus of Falwell, Jr. Still would not want to add Liberty.

(10-23-2023 11:25 AM)mturn017 Wrote:  

(10-23-2023 11:01 AM)ODU BBALL Wrote:  I haven't read the article on Liberty, but there are a lot of things going on at numerous college campuses throughout the country these days that are terrible. Things such as riots breaking out when a person with a different political view is invited to the campus to speak. When a female athlete comes to speak out against men being allowed to compete in women's sports and she needs to be escorted out by security before the event has hardly even started. People (including at least one faculty member) protesting in favor of the group that attacked Israel, raped women, killed (and beheaded) babies, etc.

It is sad what so many of these universities have become. If Liberty has done wrong, then they should be held accountable for it. I just wish that the others would clean their act up as well.

You not like Universities being filled with liberal hypocrites isn't an institutional issue. University's are likely to be filled with protesters full of self righteous anger just like Trump rallies are going to filled with self dillusional "Patriots". You can't just add in all the things you don't like about US society and equate them. First amendment is a thing and all these jackasses have the right to be themselves fully on view for the public to see.

We're talking about the leaders of a University putting their community's reputation ahead of victims of sexual assaults. That's not an opinion you don't like. That's creating an unsafe environment on your campus. Do more sexual assaults happen on Liberty's campus than other places? No. But their leaders DID go to great pains to make the it appear that it wasn't happening at all.

This is exactly right.

This isn't a story that should make you turn to whataboutism. The continues to show the pattern that Liberty's leaders have been focused on their own power and influence by selling religion while ignoring the needs of their students.

Last thoughts on this. Re: people comparing to scandal at other schools. Christians are very clear that they keep themselves to a higher standard than other schools. Listen to them talking about their campus code of conduct and moral decay in secular life. But let’s be honest. What could be less Christian than telling victims of violence to shut up because they might harm fundraising?

SHUT Liberty THE F DOWN. This is a systemic issue and starts at the very top. The only way to get rid of a weed is to pull it up by its roots.

(10-23-2023 10:36 AM)EigenEagle Wrote:  I've disliked Liberty for their milking of the student loan system and basically being a for-profit school in form but not function.

But let's be fair, I'm betting there's a lot of schools out there right now scrambling to make sure their i's are dotted and t's are crossed on this. If there was going to be a school made an example of it was going to be an evangelical school. And of course David French has had a hate boner for evangelicals for the last 7 years or so so I take how he frames the gravity of this with a grain of salt.

BTW, I wouldn't rank it ahead of the fake courses scandal at UNC or the Larry Nassar thing.

WUT?!?!