Statement from BJU’s President on the GRACE Report

[mmartin]

Pettit does need our prayers at this time. Imagine if you were a new pastor and a few months into the job had someone publicly recommend that you fire or demote two long-time prominent members.

Agreed, it would be tough to fire them - although true leaders are not afraid of tough decisions. But ultimately the better ourcome is if BJIII and Jim Berg voluntarily resign.

The remarks by Shaynus and Dr. Straub are worth reading.

We need to note the danger of insularity.

Jim Berg was assigned an impossible task with few, if any tools. Part of that might stem from suspicion of “counseling” mentality that existed. By that I mean the views that psychology was suspicious science (I heard it called witchcraft), that good preaching was better than counseling, and that everything was a sin problem.

Reporting rules have been around since the 70’s. Ignoring them in favor of going to an authority figure or even confronting the perpetrator was not uncommon.

Some have called the recommendations of the report Draconian. There are former BJU students who experienced some Draconian punishment themselves.

I see this as an opportunity for BJU to respond to an external evaluation in a positive manner and take deliberate actions to address this challenge.

This editorial appeared in the Greenville News:

http://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/opinion/editorials/2014/12/13/editorial-bju-needs-go-beyond-apology/20361945/

http://prospect.org/article/report-bob-jones-university-responded-rape-claims-woeful-ignorance-law-often-blaming-victims

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/12/11/bob-jones-u-faulted-for-treatment-of-sex-abuse-victims/20275531/

http://www.thestate.com/2014/12/11/3867154/bob-jones-releases-report-on-handling.html

I just read through this discussion. It seems as if everything was covered which I already noticed about the BJ’s initial reaction. However, this statement has not been covered:

It was never the intent of any BJU official, administrator, or faculty member to make victims feel they were responsible or more culpable for the violence they suffered than the abuser. The report explains, however, how some victims, given the distress over what they had endured, could be left with that impression from the counseling provided. Certainly, it was never intended to suggest that the teachings of Jesus and the Scriptures in any way could ignore the sin and criminal act of the abuser and shift the blame to the victim.

Ok, if this investigation and report is supposed to cover the entire history of the school (40 years?), how can they say such a thing? NO BJU official, administrator, or faculty member ever had such intent??? Of the thousands of people represented by this statement there never was ONE who did this? It would have been much better to say that if this happened, the persons who did so were not following the policy of God’s Word or the University.

Two examples:

http://www.pathtojustice.com/blog/report-bob-jones-university-covered-up-sex-abuse-allegations-for-years#.VJIbVntvDkP

http://www.hawkinslawsc.com/lawyer-attorney-2403323.html

Anyone care to speculate on whether these will result in any actual court cases? Or settlements?

I read the GRACE report and found parts of it very, very disappointing. I do not think there is a good excuse for not knowing the laws about reporting many years after they had been passed, especially for people who are running a University or a Counseling program. I also think that victims of abuse and assault need to be counseled with sensitivity that sounds like was lacking in many cases. I do, however, think the school took a major step in the right direction by subjecting themselves to an independent investigation as no other College or University that I know of has ever done before. As GRACE wrote in their report, “Stephen Jones and BJU should be heralded for taking the unprecedented and proactive step of voluntarily requesting this independent investigation.”
I do have some questions about some of the emphases and conclusions drawn in the report, even regarding the subject of reporting to authorities that was discussed repeatedly in the report. One question that came to my mind when I read the BJU website Q and A section on the GRACE report. Under the section, “Did BJU discourage students or others from reporting sexual abuse and assault?” I read the following:
“Some reported to GRACE that they were discouraged from reporting. If this occurred, it is unacceptable. In our policies and procedures, we have made it abundantly clear that any child sexual abuse or suspected abuse is to be immediately reported to local law enforcement and we have made each employee of Bob Jones Academy and BJU a mandatory reporter.
Institutions of higher education are to provide adult student victims the option to (1) notify proper law enforcement authorities, including on-campus and local police; (2) be assisted by campus authorities in notifying law enforcement authorities if the victim so chooses; and (3) decline to notify such authorities.”
What this statement seems to be saying is that if the victims came to talk to someone at BJU about their abuse or assault after turning 18 years old it would then become the victim’s choice whether or not to report the abuse or assault to law enforcement or “decline to notify such authorities.” In fact, I think that there are privacy laws, such as the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) that make it a violation of a victim’s privacy rights in such instances to report against the adult victim’s wishes (though there may be some exceptions I am not aware of—I am not a lawyer).
I totally think it is utterly wrong for adult victims to be talked out of reporting. However, in any instances where the victim, for whatever reason, actually voluntarily refuses to report it would seem that the school officials cannot legally report, according to federal law, without the adult victim’s permission. Is this correct? Would any legal experts care to weigh in?
I did not see this distinction between mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse and reporting of sexual crimes committed against adults only with the victim’s permission spelled out anywhere in the GRACE report (perhaps it is in there and I missed it, but I don’t remember seeing it). Obviously, reporting by mandatory reporters is the legal requirement for abuse of minors. But for adult victims who decline to report, I don’t think there is much that can be done by the school other than initiate an internal investigation and include the incident in their Clery Report.
One aspect I found slightly troubling in the report was what seemed to be a conflation of a school having modest dress standards with the concept of blaming victims. Now, I know that there can be some overlap here. For anyone to say that a woman wearing clothing not up to BJU handbook standards somehow “deserves” sexual assault is completely off base and disgusting. But I think a school can still have some modest dress standards and not go to that ridiculous extreme. I mean, the Bible actually does talk about modesty. There are some people in society and even many in Christianity who are increasingly buying into the idea that any kind of basic modesty standards are automatically misogynistic and treating women as sexual objects. Therefore, to ever discuss modesty seems to be becoming taboo. I think that this is an over-reaction to some extreme teachings on dress that most churches and schools (even BJU) have moved away from in recent years.
I read a point recently (I think it was on an old SI thread) regarding the GRACE investigation that raised the concern that this group may become like the “Better Business Bureau” of Christian Colleges regarding handling of these kinds of issues. That sounds good when it comes to exposing possible mishandling of abuse. However, I think it certainly could be problematic when it is applied to things like giving strong recommendations (requirements?) regarding a school’s dress or dating standards. There are a variety of positions on dress and dating standards in professing Christian circles. It could get to a point where a school feels pressured to change its dress standards, or dating standards, etc., in order to get an “A+” rating from GRACE based on GRACE’s particular viewpoint on those controversial issues. I am not saying that this report does exactly that, but that if this precedent is followed by other colleges and universities I can see that it could possibly lead to that kind of mentality.
So those are some of my thoughts. Overall, I think the report could be a very good thing as far as helping expose old wrongs in order to right them and make positive changes for the future. It is a sobering reminder to believers that we are under scrutiny and we need to make sure that our actions both as individuals and collectively through our institutions are above reproach. If and when they are not, we should not expect to get a pass from a watching world.

…….in many ways:

“During one session, she said Berg told her he wanted to do a trust exercise. He pulled a rat trap from his desk, set the hammer and put a pencil on it. The trap broke the pencil into pieces.

She said he then told her to put her finger on the trap. When she refused, he got angry and put another pencil in. The trap did not snap shut.

If she couldn’t trust the people God put over her, how could she trust God? she recalls him asking.

“I kept being told how unspiritual I was,” she said.

The counseling ended when he told her he couldn’t help her and God couldn’t help her either.”

http://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/local/2014/12/27/sexual-abuse-victims-find-healing-grace-report/20938675/

Sorry if this is old news. I hadn’t seen this before.

but my hand ain’t goin’ near a rat trap!

I loved it!