“Students, faculty and staff deserve to know that they can be safe and secure in their school communities. We respond aggressively to complaints about campus safety and security,” said Richard Cordray, the chief operating officer of the Education Department’s Federal Student Aid office. “Through the Clery Act schools are obligated to take action that creates safe and secure campus communities, investigate complaints, and responsibly disclose information about crimes and other safety concerns. We will continue to hold schools accountable if they fail to do so.”
A spokesman for Liberty said the university “is fully committed to maintaining the safety and security of students and staff without exception.” It said the university has made more than $10 million in “significant advancements” since 2022 to ensure compliance with Title IX and Clery Act.
“We acknowledge and sincerely regret past program deficiencies and have since corrected these errors with great care and concern,” the university said in a statement. “We will continue to work in cooperation with the Department to prioritize safety in our Liberty University community and to advocate for a fair, consistent, and principled standard of Clery compliance that is applied equally to all universities without prejudice.”
More than 90,000 students study at Liberty University at its campus in Lynchburg, Va., and through its online programs. It is one of the most influential Christian universities in the country and frequently draws high-profile speakers to its campus.
Liberty is private, but all schools that participate in federal financial aid programs must comply with the Clery Act, a federal law that requires timely reporting of crime statistics and other information about campus safety. And Liberty received nearly $880 million for student loans and grants from the Education Department in 2022-2023.
In 2019, the Education Department levied a $4.5 million fine against Michigan State University — the largest at the time — and required the school to take corrective action after what it called a systemic failure to protect students from sexual abuse. The finding followed an investigation of the school’s handling of reports of sexual violence by Larry Nassar, a doctor formerly employed by the university who treated athletes on the school’s gymnastics team.
The release of the Education Department report comes months after The Washington Post reported that a confidential preliminary report asserted that the university had repeatedly violated federal law and for years failed to keep its campus safe. The draft obtained by The Post detailed numerous alleged failings, including discouraging people from reporting crimes and not warning the campus about potentially dangerous incidents including gas leaks, bomb threats and reported sexual violence, even as school officials promoted the campus as one of the safest in the country. The draft also claimed that Liberty officials destroyed evidence after the government’s inquiry began.
The university disputed that account. In a statement on its website last fall, Liberty said that its goal was full candor and cooperation with the Education Department’s requests and that it had hired two firms to study the school’s compliance with the law and frame its response. It said the university had previously told the agency about “significant errors, misstatements, and unsupported conclusions in the Department’s preliminary findings.”
“Our request of the Department,” the university statement continued, “has been straightforward — that the University be treated in the same manner as similarly situated institutions, and that the Department treat Liberty fairly in accordance with its established precedent.”
Liberty repeated its concerns in its statement Tuesday. “In the report, many of the Department’s methodologies, findings, and calculations were drastically different from their historic treatment of other universities. Liberty disagrees with this approach and maintains that we have repeatedly endured selective and unfair treatment by the Department.”
In January, several lawmakers raised concerns about the Liberty inquiry. In a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, Republican Reps. Virginia Foxx (N.C.), James Comer (Ky.), and Bob Good (Va.), who chair three House committees or subcommittees, wrote that the department “seems to be targeting religious institutions through program reviews and fines that greatly exceed established and documented precedent.”
Liberty University was co-founded by televangelist Jerry Falwell in 1971. After his death in 2007, his son Jerry Falwell Jr. became president. He resigned amid personal scandals in 2020. Jerry Prevo, who had been the board chair, led as interim president until July, when Air Force Maj. Gen. Dondi E. Costin took over.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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