The president called the college’s guidance “solid,” leaving punishment victims doubting that the institution will alter

The blistering report as to how Bob Jones University has managed intimate punishment reports is still warm the presses off and some victims are generally skeptical that the university is prepared to acknowledge the severity of exactly exactly what it revealed. They do say BJU’s response reeks of harm control.

With its two-year separate research, the nonprofit Godly a reaction to Abuse into the Christian Environment discovered that intercourse abuse victims in the Greenville, sc, campus were usually advised to obtain the sin behind their rapes, pushed to repent for just about any pleasure they may have seen throughout their assaults, and encouraged to attain down to their abusers and express forgiveness or ask forgiveness from their website. The college’s counselors had been unlicensed and had no formal trained in therapy.

Some pupils, the GRACE report discovered, were penalized for reporting their punishment. Nearly half stated they certainly were encouraged never to get the authorities. The 301-page dossier also paints a campus culture where intercourse abuse victims had been meant to feel just like “damaged items.” Within the previous 12 months, America Tonight has interviewed five previous Bob Jones pupils whom reported their punishment to college officials and all sorts of state they will have yet to recoup from just just how BJU managed them.

Report: Bob Jones University shamed victims of intimate attack

For many years, Bob Jones University, a self-described fundamentalist Christian university, has advised intimate punishment victims never to go directly to the police and counseled them to repent for the fault it stated they share, relating to a thorough separate research posted the other day.

BJU President Steve Pettit is appointing a committee to examine the report throughout the next ninety days and he publicly apologized to those that “felt they would not get from us love that is genuine compassion, understanding, and help after putting up with intimate punishment or attack.” however in a chapel solution Monday, leaked into the site BJU Information, he told pupils that the report was not an exact representation of this college today.

“In proper viewpoint, i really want you to comprehend that many of the instances had been items that took place to individuals you were a child,” he said, before urging students to reassure their families when they’re home over the holidays that the school is safe before you were even born or when.

“I happened to be an extremely current graduate and I happened to be quoted at size when you look at the report. And also the culture from the time I happened to be a learning pupil have not changed,” stated one rape target whom graduated within the last 36 months and asked to keep anonymous away from a concern with retaliation. “truthfully, i am simply actually saddened. It results in like they will haven’t also browse the report, considering that the report very obviously states that it has occurred recently.”

Another previous Bob Jones pupil told America Tonight this past year that whenever she reported her rape to administrators during 2009, she ended up being accused of lying after which expelled in the exact middle of the evening.

Recent BJU graduate and punishment target

Katie Landry, whom reported her alleged rape into the college, additionally found Pettit’s remarks offensive.

“we have always been ten years eliminated, from the chronological-time point, but from the pain standpoint, that guidance nevertheless impacts me today,” she stated. “It ended up being the counseling that is first received. It absolutely was the only guidance We received for more than seven years. All i thought was that I’d done a thing that caused my rape. for more than seven years”

GRACE reported occasions that are many BJU did not inform police force of punishment, in breach of mandatory reporting rules. But it addittionally notes that the college has enhanced on that front within the last couple of several years. Jim Berg, who had been dean of students and primary therapist for three years, told GRACE detectives that their failure to report intercourse crimes to police in past times ended up being predicated on “pure lack of knowledge.”

But BJU’s guidance philosophy just isn’t one thing regarding the past that is distant Berg continues to be a faculty member. GRACE urged BJU to ban Berg from counseling totally and to strip the campus bookstore of such a thing associated with him and many other leading BJU thinkers. In addition encouraged the institution to refer all punishment victims to professionals that are licensed upheaval expertise.

In the present chapel message, Pettit said the college had a “solid approach toward counseling people.” The college recently hired a brand new women’s therapist, but she is alson’t certified, isn’t formally been trained in therapy and techniques Bob Jones’ make of biblical guidance. She had been additionally trained by Berg.