“The Liberty Way”: How Liberty University Discourages and Dismisses Students’ Reports of Sexual Assaults
Liberty officials did not respond to detailed questions sent weeks ago. But one person who received them did ultimately reply: Scott Lamb, who was Liberty University’s senior vice president of communications until earlier this month. Lamb worked at Liberty until Oct. 6, when, he said, he was fired for internally blowing the whistle on the university’s repeated failures to respond to concerns about sexual assault.
“The emails from ProPublica were definitely ignored,” said Lamb. He recalled himself and one colleague trying to make a case for the school to respond. “We said, ‘Listen, the optics of this are killing us. Is there anything we can message — something? A message about empathy? Or that we’re at least working to get to the bottom of this?’ And then it dawned on us: They’re not working to get to the bottom of this.”
Lamb was the point person who had fielded questions from journalists since he took up his post at Liberty in January 2018. He was one of the people to whom I sent a detailed request for comment this month.
Liberty’s lack of response was typical, Lamb explained. “Concerns about sexual assault would go up the chain and then die,” he said. It was “a conspiracy of silence.”
Lamb is filing a federal lawsuit alleging he was fired for raising concerns about Liberty’s conduct. Liberty did not respond to detailed questions about Lamb’s claims.