Two Evangelical Christian Schools have been revealed to have covered up rapes and sexual abuse on campus, and all evidence indicates that they did so because adminstrators thought that they deserved to be raped.
First, we have Bob Jones University:
For decades, students at Bob Jones University who sought counseling for sexual abuse were told not to report it because turning in an abuser from a fundamentalist Christian community would damage Jesus Christ. Administrators called victims liars and sinners.
All of this happened until recently inside the confines of this insular university, according to former students and staff members who said they had high hopes that the Bob Jones brand of counseling would be exposed and reformed after the university hired a Christian consulting group in 2012 to investigate its handling of sexual assaults, many of which occurred long before the students arrived at the university.
Last week, Bob Jones dealt a blow to those hopes, acknowledging that with the investigation more than a year old and nearing completion, the university had fired the consulting group, Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment, or Grace, without warning or explanation. The dismissal has drawn intense criticism from some people with ties to Bob Jones, and prompted some victims and their allies — including many who were interviewed by Grace investigators — to tell their stories publicly for the first time, attracting more attention than ever to the university’s methods.
On Friday, Stephen Jones, president of the university and great-grandson of its founder, addressed students and employees, saying, “We grew concerned that in the process, Grace had begun going beyond the originally outlined intentions,” but he would not elaborate. He said the university had not told Grace what its concerns were and wanted to discuss them with the consultant but could do so only face to face and felt compelled to fire the firm first.
Translation: They fired Grace (founded by Billy Graham’s grandson) because they found problems.
And we also see it at the newer, and somewhat more prestigious, Patrick Henry College a school that had a huge number of interns at the White House during the GW Bush administration.
Here, the allegations are more specific, and far more damning. They appear to have a policy of deliberately ascribing blame to the women in all cases, looking to blame them for their mode of dress, physical proximity, etc.
Claire was not the first female student to leave PHC disillusioned with the administration she had trusted to protect her. Other female students who say they reported sexual assault or harassment to the administration also left feeling that school officials blamed them instead of holding the accused male students accountable. The administration, they say, seemed much more concerned with protecting Patrick Henry’s pristine public image.
“Basically, my issue was swept under the rug, and the assaulter received little else but a reprimand,” says a young woman who attended Patrick Henry between 2004 and 2008. The student fell asleep at an off-campus party where there had been drinking and was awoken by a male PHC student assaulting her. She says she reported the incident to Patrick Henry. “The administration encouraged me to not go to the police and said that, because alcohol was involved and I was violating the rules there, they hinted that I could be expelled if I brought light to the incident,” the student says. “The focus was the alcohol. I drank. I sinned. I deserved to be assaulted in the middle of the night.”
There is more at the link if you can stomach it.
I would note that the problem of administrations wanting to cover up sexual assaults for reputational reasons is not unique to religious schools, but the philosophy that places all the “blame” for “sex” (rape ain’t sex, it is violence) on the women is.
Note that the administrator at Patrick Henry was a (self-hating) woman.
They hate women and their fear their power, and so the blame the women for violence done to them.
