Liberty University will pay a record $14 million fine for violations of federal law covering the treatment of sexual assault victims and statutes that require schools to disclose crime statistics and campus threats, the Education Department said Tuesday.
The Lynchburg, Virginia, Christian school agreed to pay the fine and spend an additional $2 million over the next two years to improve on-campus safety and compliance with the legislation, the department said.
The fine and settlement payment came after the school, which has over 15,000 students on campus and more than 118,000 enrolled in online programs, faced a 2022 civil suit filed by 12 students and alumni saying that Liberty created an unsafe environment and failed to act on abuse complaints properly. The school later settled the civil action, the Associated Press reported.
According to the Education Department, the school failed in 11 areas of actions and record keeping, including failures to comply with provisions of the Violence Against Women Act including telling victims their rights and options in the investigatory process; issuing warnings and emergency notifications to the campus community; to properly classify and disclose crime statistics; and failure to publish and distribute an annual security report.
“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, chief operating officer of the Education Department's Federal Student Aid Office, which imposed the fine. “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.”
Liberty said in October that the school had received a preliminary report on the Education Department’s probe of campus safety issues, and that it anticipated a $37.5 million fine. The amount announced Tuesday was well below half that total.
In a statement, the university said it “has made more than $10 million in significant advancements since 2022” to correct prior errors and ensure compliance with both the Clery Act and requirements under Title IX of the Civil Rights Act.
The school “is fully committed to maintaining the safety and security of students and staff without exception,” according to the statement.
At the same time, Liberty said many of the education agency’s “methodologies, findings, and calculations were drastically different from their historic treatment of other universities,” and claimed the school had endured "selective and unfair treatment” as a result.
The statement acknowledged “numerous deficiencies” in previous years, including “incorrect statistical reports as well as necessary timely warnings and emergency notifications that were not sent.” Liberty said it had “regret” for those shortcomings and “have since corrected these errors with great care and concern.”
Before Tuesday’s fine for Liberty, Michigan State University held the record for the largest financial penalty at $4.5 million, assessed in 2019 following failures in responding to sexual assault complaints against then-campus sports doctor Larry Nassar, who was convicted of molesting female athletes.
In 2016, officials fined Pennsylvania State University $2.4 million as an outgrowth of child sexual abuse complaints against Jerry Sandusky, a longtime assistant football coach there.
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
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