So at last, Jerry Falwell Jr.’s exit from Liberty University is a done deal:

In a phone call to The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Falwell said he had just sent his resignation letter to the board of the Christian school in Virginia. Mr. Falwell was placed on an
indefinite leave of absence two weeks ago, following criticism about a photo he posted on
social media showing him with his pants unbuttoned, a cup of dark liquid in one hand and
his other arm draped around a woman. The woman, who Mr. Falwell said was his wife’s
assistant, also had her pants open.

“The board put me on leave, took away my duties as prez, and that’s not permitted by my
contract,” Mr. Falwell said Monday night. “And they put me on leave because of pressure
from self-righteous people.”

What a greedhead. Here’s a guy who humiliated the university he leads with a tasteless yacht photo of his pants undone while embracing a young woman in similar humorous déshabillé, and then on Monday admitted that his wife, the so-called “First Lady of Liberty University” had been banging a pool boy with his knowledge — and, if Reuters is right, worse than that. And still he has the nerve to hold up Liberty U. for his full salary! I guess to own the self-righteous people who think the president of a Christian university shouldn’t behave like a pervy frat boy.

It’s going to take Liberty a long, long time to dig out from under this scandal. What did the Board of Trustees know, and when did it know it?

It costs around $40,000 per year to attend Liberty. The school also has a massive online student body, who also pay tuition. Now every one of those students, and all Liberty University degree holders, are going to suffer the taint from this scandal. Falwell Jr. has been a dominant presence on that campus, especially after becoming part of President Trump’s inner circle. Reputationally speaking, Jerry Falwell Jr. is Liberty University. The Falwell name is synonymous with the school.

If I had invested in a Liberty degree for myself or my child, I would want to know exactly what the Board of Trustees knew about Jerry and Becki Falwell’s scandalous behavior, and unless it was a complete surprise to them, why they did nothing about it. Liberty University is a non-profit entity. Board members of non-profit entities have particular fiduciary duties. Among them is the “duty of care”:

Duty of care means that board directors must give the same care and concern to their board responsibilities as any prudent and ordinary person would. This means board members should be actively participating in board meetings and on committees. It also means that they should be actively working with other board directors to advance the organization’s mission and goals. They can fulfill their responsibilities by overseeing and monitoring the nonprofit’s activities. Board directors should be able to read and understand financial reports and be willing to question expenditures and examine variances. They are also responsible for strategic planning and achieving the nonprofit’s short- and long-term goals.

If there is any reason whatsoever to believe that the board knew, or should have known, about Jerry Jr.’s shenanigans, then I don’t see how it avoids having to undergo an independent investigation to find out what went wrong. Brandon Ambrosino’s well-reported Politico piece last fall raised all kinds of questions about the stewardship of the university by the Falwells, and the board. Excerpt:

Senior Liberty officials might whisper about the propriety of these business deals, but they told me that Falwell’s decisions on campus are rarely ever challenged by the school’s board of trustees. “There’s no accountability,” a former high-ranking university officer said. “Jerry’s got pretty free reign to wheel and deal professionally and personally. The board will approve an annual budget, but beyond that … he doesn’t go to the board to get approval. … It simply doesn’t happen.”

That’s the financial side of things. On the ethical side, though, did the board know, or have reason to know, about Jerry and Becki Falwell’s sexual arrangement with the third party to their marriage — an arrangement that, as has been reported, had a business component? Is this the only such arrangement by the couple? Were Liberty monies involved in any way? Even if they weren’t, given the paramount role that Jerry Jr. played in the university, and in defining its brand, didn’t the board have a responsibility to stay on top of these things?

In a Biden administration, Liberty University will be a big fat target — a legitimate target — for an IRS audit. If it were to emerge that the Liberty board knew, or had a responsibility to know, of Jerry Jr.’s dodgy operations, but did nothing about it, then their poor oversight could have set the university up for a disastrous situation.

Aside from the legality of the business decisions, we have just learned that the president of the best-known conservative Evangelical university in the country was party to a six-year affair in which he appears to have consented to another man having sex with his wife (if you haven’t heard the audio of Jerry teasingly chastising Pool Boy for making his wife jealous with his other relationships, you should). And having this shocking immorality exposed to the world, Jerry Jr., who for over a decade ran a university that touted itself as “training champions for Christ,” has the nerve to demand his full salary, and to paint himself as the victim of “self-righteous people.”

The arrogance is breathtaking. I cannot understand why he feels no sense of shame before the world, before the people of Liberty University, and before his children. Then again, his lack of capacity for shame is probably what got him into this sick, twisted situation.

In the last academic year, my niece, a devout Evangelical, told my mother, her grandmother, that she ideally wanted to go to Liberty. Through my mom, I warned her to stay away, that there was too much talk of scandal involving Jerry and Becki Falwell to risk going into debt to get a Liberty degree. I said that Liberty is unlike other schools in that during these past few years, with Trump in the White House, its brand is tightly tied up to the personality of Jerry Falwell Jr. If he goes down, his fall is going to put Liberty in a terrible position, if only for the fact that a Liberty degree will be tainted in the eyes of potential employers, because of the Falwell association. Unfair? Yes. But that’s how the world works. With someone as reckless as Jerry Jr. in command, and knowing that there was bound to be more to the Pool Boy story than had been reported, I advised my niece that Liberty was not a risk worth taking.

She ended up at a state school. I cannot tell you how relieved I am, now that the other flip-flop has dropped in the Pool Boy saga.

Here’s the thing, though: if I were a Liberty student or alumnus, I would be trying to protect the value of my degree by demanding that the Board give an accounting of its oversight of Jerry and Becki Falwell. Again, if the Board knew, or had reason to know, of their sexual immorality, and turned a blind eye to it, how can that not be a gross failure of duty of care? If the president of Vassar College, for example, and his or her spouse are revealed to have been involved some sort of open marriage arrangement, it might be icky, but it’s not going to affect the reputation of Vassar College. Same thing with most other universities. Not so with a Christian college, especially a conservative Evangelical college, and most especially one whose brand is inseparable from the Falwell family.

Jerry Jr.’s resignation is the breach in the dam. The fact that he’s being so cocky, despite what has been made public about him and his wife and their kinky, adulterous sex life, is a flashing neon sign signaling corruption. If you’re a member of the Board whose job it is to hold the president of Liberty University responsible, and you failed to do so, then the corruption is on you too. How do you face the students and the alumni, and explain your actions, or lack of action, to them?

In an Associated Press report from August 14, Dwayne Carson, a former longtime Liberty staffer, said:

Carson, who now leads a Christian school in North Carolina, said the board would “need to ask some tough questions” to ensure accountability even as he expressed “love” for the Falwell family.

Harkening back to a sentiment expressed by the elder Falwell, Carson observed: “It’s not Jerry Jr.’s university. It’s God’s university.”

Oh? Who has really been Liberty’s god? That is the core question facing the Board, and the Liberty community: Whom did they fear more, the Lord, or Jerry Jr.?