Bob Jones University’s long history of shamefully inadequate response to sexual assault may have finally caught up with it. There is nearly irrefutable evidence that as a result of the ultrafundamentalist school’s failure to report allegations of sexual assault earlier in the decade, a child predator was allowed to remain at large for 12 years before being arrested last month.
Back in May, Ben Adams, an LA-based entertainment lawyer, was arrested in Manhattan Beach on charges that he used his position to wheedle his way into a 14-year-old boy’s life and molest him. Less than a month later, BJUGrace, a social media ministry that wants BJU to turn from its history of victim shaming and victim blaming, got word that Adams had attended BJU earlier in the decade.
When the lead investigator on the case, Manhattan Beach detective Aleina Smith, got wind of this, she immediately did some digging into Adams’ past in Greenville, South Carolina; home to BJU. She discovered that Adams had briefly attended BJU in 2004, but was forced to withdraw when several minors complained he’d molested them.
Smith found something else that is at least as horrifying. There was no evidence BJU reported this to the police. From an email Smith sent to several media outlets:
If the allegations of sexual abuse were made, it is unclear if Bob Jones University, once alerted to the allegations, informed law enforcement. I have not found any documentation that shows the university properly reported the abuse to law enforcement at the time they learned of it.
Indeed, Greenville police hadn’t even heard of Adams until Smith got in touch with them.
While digging into this for Liberal America last week, I spoke with former BJU professor Camille Lewis, who knows as much about BJU as anyone. Lewis spent the first two decades of her adult life at BJU as both a student and a professor before quitting in disgust at BJU’s unwillingness to get its collective head out of its collective rear end on sexual abuse. She confirmed what I immediately suspected—the stench from this went all the way to the top. Ultimately, the men responsible for ensuring this was reported to police were then-president Bob Jones III and then-dean of students Jim Berg.
Jones and Berg figured very prominently in a scathing report released by Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment after a two-year investigation into BJU’s response to sexual assault. GRACE held Jones and Berg responsible for BJU’s culture of victim blaming and victim shaming. As dean of students, Berg was responsible for handling most of the student counseling; he stepped down as dean in 2010 to focus on teaching counseling to graduate seminary students. GRACE recommended that Berg be banned from counseling duties, and also recommended that all of his materials be yanked from the shelves. It also recommended that Jones, who is now chancellor, be disciplined.
However, BJU rejected these recommendations out of hand. And now, it looks like the bill has finally come due for that folly. After all, this is an exact replay of the Penn State scandal—with Adams as Jerry Sandusky, Jones as Graham Spanier, and Berg as Tim Curley. In both cases, failure to report sexual assault resulted in a child molester remaining at large for more than a decade.
Adams could spend the rest of his life in prison if convicted on all charges pending in California. However, investigators on both coasts believe that there are more victims in both California and South Carolina. If you know anything about this case, please call Smith at 310-802-5133.
However, real justice for the victims won’t come unless those who allowed Adams to remain free are held to account. And that starts with Jones and Berg showing some leadership for once by apologizing for their failure and resigning their posts. Sign this petition telling Jones and Berg to go—now.