Liberty University broke safety laws for years, government asserts

Liberty University has failed for years to keep its campus safe and repeatedly violated the federal law that specifies how it should do so, according to preliminary confidential findings from an Education Department inquiry.

Under the Clery Act, colleges that participate in federal financial aid programs — Liberty received $874 million for this from the Education Department in 2020-2021 — must disclose crime statistics and other timely information about campus safety. They may face a program review if the department has concerns. That investigation can result in fines or even limits on financial-aid eligibility. Liberty acknowledged last year that the Education Department was conducting such an inquiry.

The Program Review Report, as the initial summary is known, suggests numerous failures at Liberty, including a fundamental lack of administrative ability to keep the campus safe. It found the school did not adequately take complaints of crimes, produce incident reports, warn the campus of emergencies and threats to safety, advise crime victims of their rights or handle the data needed for crime statistics.

In 2016, the school did issue an emergency notification about a bomb threat, the report says, but senior officials were concerned, and at least one campus police officer “was subjected to disciplinary action for issuing the notice even though it was issued in conformity with Federal law and the institution’s published policy at the time.”

Crime statistics, too, were systematically underreported, according to the 74-page review, which says Liberty could not provide basic documentation to substantiate its campus crime figures. The authors note that schools that participate in federal financial aid programs are legally required to produce records of this kind.

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