On Tuesday, it was announced that Liberty University, a large Christian school in Virginia, has agreed to pay a record $14 million fine for failure to disclose crimes on campus and for its treatment of sexual assault survivors, the US Department of Education announced.
It is the largest fine ever levied under the Clery Act, a law that requires American colleges and institutions that receive federal funding to college data on crimes committed on campus and to notify students of threats.
Schools must give an annual security report with information on efforts to improve campus safety. Liberty has reportedly represented itself as one of the safest college campuses in the country for years.
However, its police department only has one officer who had minimal oversight of criminal investigations from 2016 to 2023, according to federal investigators.
The Department of Education also said that it has identified numerous cases that resulted in misclassification or underreporting of criminal acts on campus.
There were also incidents in which the university department claims to be unfounded without providing evidence to support that finding.
"This was especially common with respect to sexually based offenses, including rape and fondling cases," the settlement agreement stated.
One case in particular that was cited by federal investigators was about a woman being raped by an attacker who claimed to have a knife.
According to Liberty's investigation, the claim was "unfounded this case based on a claim that the 'victim indicates that she consented to the sexual act,'" the agreement stated. "In point of fact, the victim's own statement merely indicated that she 'gave in' in an attempt to get away from the perpetrator."
That case was eventually listed in the criminal report.
The report further stated that many victims of sexual assault feared reporting what happened to them out of concern for reprisal, and several were punished for violating the student code of conduct while the alleged assailants went unpunished, according to the feds.
"Consequently, victims of sexual assault often felt dissuaded by Liberty administration's reputation for punishing sexual assault survivors rather than helping them," the agreement said. "Such fears created a culture of silence where sexual assaults commonly went unreported."
"Liberty disagrees with this approach and maintains that we have repeatedly endured selective and unfair treatment by the department," the school maintains.
