By Susan Svrluga, Sarah Pulliam Bailey and Michelle Boorstein
Washington Post, August 24, 2020 at 5:05 p.m.
Jerry Falwell Jr. has agreed to resign as president of Liberty University on Monday, according to a school official. The move came after a series of personal scandals rocked the evangelical university he has led since 2007.
Opposition to his presidency had been growing but came to a dramatic head after two new reports about a young man Falwell and his wife befriended at a Florida pool, went into business with and who allegedly was sexually connected to the couple. One report painted Falwell as the victim of an obsessive affair; the other as an eager participant manipulating a naive young man.
Falwell had been placed on paid leave Aug. 7 after he posted a provocative picture of himself and his wife’s assistant on social media. Both had their zippers partially down and Falwell was holding a dark beverage he joked was nonalcoholic and “just a prop.” Drinking or being around alcohol as well as sexual promiscuity are banned for students under Liberty’s personal code of conduct. Liberty board members had said in a statement Friday that they were investigating.
Monday was the first day of classes for Liberty students this fall.
Liberty University was founded in 1971 to “train champions for Christ,” and many at the school revere the memory of his father, Jerry Falwell Sr., the prominent evangelist who was one of the school’s founders.
For many years, Falwell was best known for lifting the university his father helped found out of debt, shoring up its finances, improving its physical campus and leading a dramatic growth in enrollment.
Jerry Falwell Jr., president of conservative Liberty University, praised Donald Trump’s conservative credentials at the Republican National Convention in 2016. (The Washington Post)
He made national headlines when he endorsed President Trump in 2016, one of the first prominent evangelicals to do so.
He also garnered criticism for that: A former chairman of Liberty’s executive committee, Mark DeMoss, resigned over the endorsement, saying Trump’s campaign was a rejection of the values the university promotes.
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