Falwell’s departure a big relief at Liberty
Jerry Falwell Jr. long had made a point of emphasizing that he wasn’t trying to be a moral leader.
He made crude jokes, insulted fellow Christians, and was photographed partying on yachts and in nightclubs. But he rarely apologized or expressed regret.
“I have never been a minister,” he tweeted last year. He liked to tell reporters that Jesus didn’t tell Caesar how to run Rome.
That was always an unusual stance for the head of a distinctly evangelical institution. But Falwell pulled it off until recently, coasting by on a combination of success — Liberty’s endowment grew to $1.6 billion under his watch — and goodwill engendered by lingering institutional fondness for his father, who founded the school and was both a minister and an administrator.
On Tuesday, after a chaotic 48 hours in which a sex scandal emerged and Falwell resigned and then changed his mind, he officially was out as president and chancellor of Liberty University, the influential evangelical institution in Lynchburg, Va..
Many students and others with ties to the school greeted his departure with relief. A seemingly constant flow of controversies was finally over.
“I wasn’t expecting him to be a spiritual leader, but I was expecting him to be a spiritual example,” said Eli Best, a junior who is majoring in mechanical engineering and whose brother Calum cofounded Save 71, an alumni group that worked to oust Falwell. “The president of a university not abiding by his own standards, in terms of bars and alcohol and sexuality — all those stories, that tipped me off. It was like a flashing sign in our faces.”
Monday was the first day of classes for the fall semester at Liberty. On a campus where class sessions often open in prayer, some professors referred to the uncertainty of the moment, and encouraged students to pray for both the institution’s future and the Falwell family.
“We almost had a monarchy, but you don’t see that at any other university, where presidents are chosen based on their skills and abilities,” said Tavia Bruxellas, a senior who’s president of the student government Senate. “Everybody just sees Liberty as this big Republican university, and students are really tired of that.”