Bob Jones University Faulted Over Treatment of Sex Abuse Victims

[onager]

Story from NY Times today.

I'm currently sitting not far from Bob Jones University, and the local media is reporting this story heavily.

For foreign/newer readers - BJU is a Fundamentalist "university" in Greenville, South Carolina. I grew up about 50 miles from the place, and internet searches will tell you a lot about its sorry history.

Even my devout Xian family and friends laugh about BJU, and call it "Jesus Tech" - among other things.

One story I remember - BJU once asked the South Carolina National Guard for some surplus .50 caliber machine guns. The state Attorney General asked why a small Fundie school needed with such heavy weaponry. BJU responded, "To protect our white women students." The request was denied.

For decades, Bob Jones University told sexual assault survivors that they were to blame for the abuse, and not to report it because doing so would damage their families, their church and the university, according to a long-awaited investigative report released Thursday...

“I was abused from the ages of 6 to 14 by my grandfather,” one respondent said. “When I went for counseling I was told: `Did you repent for your part of the abuse? Did your body respond favorably?’ ” The person reported being told that going to the police “tore your family apart, and that’s your fault,” and that “you love yourself more than you love God...”

About half the abuse survivors said the university had actively discouraged them from reporting the assaults to the police...

In late 2012, the university commissioned the investigation by Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment, an evangelical group known as Grace that is devoted to rooting out sexual abuse in churches and related groups. The university fired the group last January, apparently unhappy with the direction the investigation was taking, and then rehired it after a barrage of criticism.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/12/us/bob-jones-university-sex-assault-victim-study.html?_r=0

[Posteritatis]

1. Been waiting for that report to come out for awhile

A friend of mine's a BJU alum (she'll use the word "survivor" non-ironically) who's been involved in the fight against the school for several years. Some of the stuff GRACE has uncovered - and some of the things that BJU's tried to do to shut them down - is astounding.

[onager]

3. Good luck to your friend and thanks for posting!

I'll bet some of those things are "astounding." And I hope they all come out.

[Posteritatis]

5. Here's a link to the full report

http://netgrace.org/wp-content/uploads/Final-Report.pdf (about 300 pages)

The statistics (around p. 25-30) about the percentage of abuse victims BJU "directed" not to contact police (as opposed to otherwise suggested/pressured/etc not to, which they track separately) when they found out about an abusive situation is outright appalling.

My friend didn't fall afoul of that directly, but did get a permanent injury otherwise - she had an injury that required orthopedic footwear while it healed or it, well, wouldn't, but the school forbade it because the prescribed shoe resembled men's footwear too much and was thus verboten. Someone not yet out of their teens who's sheltered enough to go there is just going to accept that and live with the resulting damage - "I wouldn't dare defy biblical authority!" - and by the time she realized how much was wrong about that it was already years too late.

When that's one of the nicest stories I hear about the place, it makes me kinda yearn for a well-placed meteorite between semesters or something.

[Curmudgeoness]

2. GRACE???

Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment???

All I can think is that there is only one "Godly Response" to abuse, and that is to punish the abuser and help the victim. Obviously, BJU is not in agreement with me. How sad!

[Posteritatis]

6. Yep. Their *actual policy* is that the victim, by being a victim, caused the abuse.

Someone there comes forward about being abused, even if it's something as absolutely, unambiguously morally straightforward as being outright raped by another student?

The school's policy, the actual viewpoint they systematically apply, is to try to compel her to apologize to her attacker, because in their eye the sin of deserving to be raped is far worse than the act itself.

Augh.

[Curmudgeoness]

7. Now that is what I call "grace"!

The Taliban would be proud.

[Posteritatis]

8. Yeah, GRACE is definitely taking the opposite approach to BJU on *that* issue

Hence why the school tried to shut down the investigation at least once, and spent awhile in the summer trying to lean on the employers of people who were working with it. Real class acts there...

[AlbertCat]

9. only one "Godly Response" to abuse

There is zero "godly" responses to everything.

How about a human response.... (humAIN... not human)?

[Curmudgeoness]

10. Well,

I guess THAT is the difference. And that is why BJU does not respond in a humane way.

I suppose that we should be grateful that they don't have a "godly" response. From what the Bible tells us God believes, they would have to stone the victim.

[Warpy]

4. They're rigidly patriarchal there

and any woman who was raped is a temptress who deserved it because (and there are a million reasons, from her walk to her clothing to the length of her hair).

They know that won't impress police who see battered victims whose insides were ripped apart by a man who loathes anything female. However, the widdle boysies must be protected at all costs because they're second to gawd in the whole scheme of things.

[Lordquinton]

11. Is anyone really suprised

that BJU has a sex abuse scandal? Next thing you know we find out they are located at 69 reacharound drive...