5 Takeaways from the Liberty University Clery Audit

The report rebuked the school’s Clery compliance program and provides other colleges and universities with helpful insights to consider.
Published: July 29, 2024

On March 5, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) ended their four-year dry spell of issuing Final Program Review Determinations (FPRD) with the public release of the Liberty University FPRD. (Read the Letter.) The lengthy report registered a sharp rebuke of the school’s Clery compliance program and provides the wider Clery world with helpful insights to consider. While much can be gleaned from the Liberty University FPRD, below are five takeaways.

Liberty Clery Audit Takeaway #1: Clery Compliance Is Downstream of Culture

ED didn’t give much quarter with respect to the systematic failures of Liberty’s Clery program and spent a fair amount of ink illuminating their depth and breadth. The school was found to have substantial deficiencies in nearly every aspect of its Clery compliance program. In Clery-speak, ED categorized this constellation of problems as a lack of administrative capability. However, in reading the FPRD, I think the case can be made that the headwaters of the lack of administrative capability were a problem with culture, and noncompliance was the downstream result.

Related Article: Liberty University to Pay Record $14 Million Fine for Violating Clery Act

For example, ED noted a reorganization occurred whereby the executive vice president of human resources (EVP of HR) at Liberty University — a member of the former university president’s family and thought to be the second most powerful person at Liberty — was put in charge of overseeing Liberty University’s Police Department (LUPD). LUPD was the unit in charge of administering the school’s Clery program at the time, and ED indicated this change was made so the EVP of HR could manage and monitor the operations of the LUPD, including those related to the Clery Act. Specifically, the EVP of HR directed the LUPD not to issue timely warnings, and “intentionally suppressed” the issuance of emergency notifications, which resulted in the university failing to issue campus safety notifications over the course of several years. Upon review of reported incidents, Liberty University determined there were 17 incidents where they failed to issue an emergency notification and 47 incidents where they failed to issue a timely warning going back to 2016.[i]

——Article Continues Below——

Get the latest industry news and research delivered directly to your inbox.

Other culture-killers in the FPRD include allegations of retaliation, intentional records destruction, disciplining victims of crime but not offenders, not recording a serious offense pertaining to the school’s previous president, not fixing issues identified during Liberty University’s first Clery review by ED several years earlier, a lawsuit stemming from mishandling Violence Against Women’s Act (VAWA) reports and disregarding or denying employee’s requests to use their own resources to fix some of the known compliance issues. In fairness, not all the allegations above were sustained during the review, but what is clear is there were major cultural issues at the school that had a direct and negative effect on its Clery compliance program.

ED opined that at least some of the issues above appeared to be the result of Liberty University attempting to maintain its self-proclaimed status as the safest college in Virginia. In ED’s view, had Liberty’s Clery program been operating effectively, the collection, publication and communication about reported crimes on campus – which were much higher than what was publicly reported – would have called into question the school’s assertion about safety. The tragic aspect of this alleged calculous is that while an effective Clery program may have undercut the numerical claim that Liberty University was the safest college in Virginia, it presumably would have made the campus community safer by being better educated about safety issues so that accurate, informed decisions about personal safety could be made.

Related Article: Why the List of ‘10 Most Dangerous College Campuses’ Is Dangerous and Misleading

If you haven’t already, brief your administration on this FPRD and connect the dots between culture and compliance. A strong, healthy culture should result in a strong Clery compliance program, which should ultimately result in a more informed and safer campus community.

Liberty Clery Audit Takeaway #2: You Might Need to Issue an Emergency Notification to a Single Person

The Clery Act requires institutions to have two different types of safety notifications: timely warnings and emergency notifications. Timely warnings cannot be segmented and must be able to reach the entire campus community. Emergency notifications, on the other hand, offer flexibility and allow institutions to issue them only to the segment of the population determined to be at risk.

In Liberty University’s FPRD, a former football player was reported to have engaged in several acts of violence against one specific person. ED determined an emergency notification should have been issued in this case, stating the school should have issued one “to the segment of the campus population who were foreseeably at risk. In this case, the segment of the community that had to be warned may have been as small as one person. Namely, the victim of multiple acts of violence committed by the former football player.”

Liberty Clery Audit Takeaway #3: If You Don’t Remediate, You Must Notify

As part of their explanation about the need to send an emergency notification in the case of the former football player, ED wrote, “If Liberty wanted to avoid the need to issue an emergency notification in this case, it could have initiated remedial measures to eliminate the dangerous condition . . .” ED dinged Liberty for not sending out emergency notifications and timely warnings in other cases as well. The university asserted that it had implemented remedial measures in those cases that eliminated the need to issue campus alerts, but ED disagreed. The discussions surrounding why ED felt that the remedial measures imposed did not eliminate the need to issue campus alerts provides helpful guidance for Clery practitioners. Consider the following cases:

  • In the case of the former football player, Liberty University said it issued a No Contact Order (NCO) between the player and victim, and also limited the player’s access to the campus, allowing him to only access buildings controlled by the athletics department. However, ED said the NCO was not enough to remediate the dangerous condition created by the football player, evidenced by his continuing to reoffend, and pointed out the victim had to be in the same buildings that the football player was allowed to be in. As noted above, ED indicated an emergency notification should have been sent.
  • In a different case, the then dean of students at Liberty University was reported to have engaged in multiple instances of sexual misconduct against other employees. The school indicated they remediated the threat by investigating and disciplining the dean through their sexual misconduct process. ED disagreed, stating the only result of the disciplinary process appeared to be the demotion of the dean, who was later promoted to the position of executive director of student wellness, and an emergency notification should have been sent. He was later terminated after two new complaints of sexual misconduct were lodged against him.
  • Another case involved an employee who reported being sexually assaulted by another employee. The offender was fired and banned from campus. Even still, ED determined a timely warning should have been issued, stating, “termination of such a perpetrator, which takes time, is not a sufficient means of eliminating the serious and continuing threat posed by a sex offender . . .”
  • Finally, a case was presented where a victim reported they were choked, fondled and disallowed by a professor to leave their vehicle. Liberty University issued a timely warning 24 days later, which ED determined was too late. In their analysis, ED wrote, “the professor who committed the alleged crimes was arrested but bonded out, and therefore, could return to campus. As such, this offender continued to pose an ongoing and serious threat to the community.”

Clery professionals will need to make “snapshot” assessments at the moment of intake regarding the issuance of a campus alert, as well as ongoing assessments in cases that are being managed by administrative or case management teams. In order for the latter to happen, Clery professionals should be tied into units such as Title IX, HR and threat management teams,[ii] and be kept abreast of developments that may trigger a duty to warn. As ED put it, “to be effective, a Clery Compliance Officer must be able to work across the enterprise, taking in and synthesizing information, reviewing, and refining publicly facing and internal policies and procedures, and providing technical advice on an ongoing basis.”

Liberty Clery Audit Takeaway #4: The Department of Education is Enforcing the VAWA Amendments to the Clery Act

Even though these provisions have been a requirement for nearly a decade, this is the first time ED has applied teeth to their application. Specifically, Liberty University did not provide victims of VAWA offenses with written rights and options VAWA affords them. Templates for written rights and options can be found from various sources, including professional organizations and other kind-hearted institutions willing to share, and all institutions should have them at this point. To ensure the information in this important resource is accurate – especially related to on and off-campus resources, make sure someone has the responsibility of maintaining and updating the information in the document at least once a year.

Liberty Clery Audit Takeaway #5: Liberty University Fined $14 Million: Noncompliance Is Costly

Liberty was issued a record-breaking $14 million dollar fine for the Clery violations delineated in the FPRD. This far outpaces the previous record fines of $4.5 million against Michigan State University and $2.4 million against Pennsylvania State University. ED has other high-profile Clery reviews in the pipeline and has indicated that more high fines may be coming, but administrative penalties are only the tip of the ice burg when it comes to the fallout of noncompliance. Other downstream effects can include reputational damage, lawsuits, loss of donor support, a poisoning of campus culture, personnel turnover, higher student fees to make up for lost revenue and, ultimately, a more poorly informed and potentially less safe campus community.

[i] ED determined there were 19 incidents that warranted an emergency notification.

[ii] Notably, ED listed information that was contained within a threat assessment report as a partial reason for why an emergency notification should have been issued in a particular matter.


Elliot Cox is a School Safety Analyst for the Idaho School Safety and Security Program. He can be reached at [email protected]

Note: The views expressed by guest bloggers and contributors are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, Campus Safety

Strategy & Planning Series
Strategy & Planning Series
Strategy & Planning Series
Strategy & Planning Series
Strategy & Planning Series