Liberty University announced it will pursue an independent investigation into school operations during Jerry Falwell Jr.’s tenure as president.
“This past week challenged all of us to the core,” Liberty University’s executive committee, acting on behalf of its board of trustees, said in a statement on Monday. “While we had been willing to extend grace and understanding to Jerry Falwell, Jr. before, once the revelations about his past personal life came more fully to light, we acted swiftly and decisively to ask for his immediate resignation, which we received.”
Falwell resigned amid a spiral of racy media reports about him and his wife’s sex life with a Miami pool boy earlier in August.
The former president of the evangelical Christian school in Lynchburg, Virginia, took an indefinite leave of absence before his resignation after posting an image to social media deemed inappropriate. The image, posted to Instagram, showed him and his wife’s assistant both wearing unzipped pants with part of his underwear visible. Falwell later deleted the post.
Falwell claims he is owed $10.5 million as part of a severance package because he hadn’t been accused or admitted to doing anything wrong.
Liberty University said, moving forward, it hopes to learn “the consequences that have flowed from a lack of spiritual stewardship by our former president.”
The investigation will include, but won’t be limited to financial, real estate, and legal matters occurring during Falwell’s tenure.
“Some may say that all the signs were there for a long time before last week,” the committee said. “It’s certainly fair to say that there were questionable comments made, worrying behavior, and inappropriate social media posts, but all the signs were not there until the start of last week. While we still didn’t know the full scope of the matter, we have learned enough about the past to know that we had no choice but to take the leadership of Liberty University in a new direction.”
The university will also allow acting President Rev. Jerry Prevo to use the full range of his presidential authority to implement any changes necessary to improve operations of the school.
