I think most people would agree-- or especially, House Republican leadership-- that the most failed member of Congress is North Carolina Nazi Madison Cawthorn, also the youngest member of Congress at 26. An inveterate liar and self-promoter, Cawthorn is being drummed out of Congress by Republicans, who have coalesced behind state senator Chuck Edwards. Edwards is expected to defeat Cawthorn May 17, despite Trump having endorsed Cawthorn and attempted to pump him up at a live rally.
It's hard to feel too much sympathy for Cawthorn because he's a truly horrible person who appears to be on a massive self-destructive jihad. The kid was home-schooled right through the end of high school and apparently no one ever taught him that lying as a default position is dysfunctional and plain wrong.
In 2014, Mark Meadows nominated him for the U.S. Naval Academy and his was rejected. He then lied about that until he was forced to tell the truth or commit perjury. So he's now on record admitting he knew he was rejected before his accident, something he formerly denied, blaming his rejection on the accident.
Two years later he enrolled in a Bible college, accredited only by the sketchy Transnational Association of Christian Colleges & Schools. He flunked out after one semester, falsely claiming his grades were low primarily because his injuries had interfered with his ability to learn and because he was depressed because his fiancée broke up with him. He has been accused by half a dozen women who rejected his advances of sexually inappropriate behavior, something that plagues religious schools filled with sexually frustrated young men.
Some might say that the combination of home-schooling and a pretend religionist college have contributed to what Cawthorn has turned into, kind of like extenuating circumstances. Personally, I think it would be a good idea for voters to avoid home-schooled candidates and candidate from religious schools. I noticed that yesterday, one of the most famous of the evangelical schools, Liberty University, is now under investigation for their routine mishandling of rape cases.
Yesterday, Michael Gryboski, "mainline church editor" of the Christian Post, gave a run-down of the Liberty University investigation by the U.S. Department of Education. "Another former student,"he wrote, "has claimed that Liberty University failed to properly investigate her allegation of sexual assault, prompting the U.S. Department of Education to investigate the school's handling of assault allegations. The lawsuit, filed last week in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, argues that Liberty 'failed to provide Plaintiff with services or reasonable accommodations required under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the Rehabilitation Act, and other laws.' According to the complaint, student Jane Doe was raped by another student on April 27, 2021, at an off-campus student housing complex called The Oasis. The lawsuit claims that the university didn't investigate the claim and later accused her of violating the student code of conduct." At least this time it wasn't a professor raping a student. Nor the school president buying sexual favors from a young man with the school's assets
The lawsuit comes after a class-action lawsuit was filed last year by a dozen students who made similar allegations. The U.S. Department of Education is now investigating Liberty University's handling of reported sexual assaults and the school's compliance with the Clery Act, which requires schools to support victims of sexual violence.
The incident involving Doe was said to have occurred following a party at the pool and courtyard of the apartment complex. "Excessive and underage drinking" allegedly occurred for hours "unabated and unmonitored."
The alleged perpetrator was accused of being intoxicated and following Doe to her room when she went to change clothes. Inside the room, Doe alleges she was raped and strangled despite her best attempts to escape. The lawsuit makes clear that the advances were unwanted. Doe said she texted friends to come to help her escape the situation, and Doe immediately reported the crime to campus authorities.
“Despite their knowledge of the incident, Liberty failed to investigate the matter and did not take any action or protective measures in response,” claimed the lawsuit.
“Instead, Liberty demonstrated systematic deliberate indifference, retaliated against the Plaintiff, and perpetuated a sexually hostile and dangerous environment on and around campus.”
The complaint states that because of “Liberty’s conduct, Plaintiff Jane Doe suffered immense damages,” including damage to her “academic standing,” being “ostracized from the university community” and being “accused by the administration of violating the 'Liberty Way' (Liberty’s code of student conduct).”
“[Jane Doe] lived in regular fear of encountering her assailant on and around campus, and dealt with daily mental, emotional, and psychological trauma,” continued the complaint. “Ultimately, Plaintiff was forced out of Liberty University.”
A Liberty University spokesperson told the Christian Post in an emailed statement Monday that the university “has not reviewed the lawsuit and therefore declines to make a specific, public comment on the suit at this time.”
“Liberty University will certainly address these claims in court," the statement reads.
Also listed as plaintiffs are companies that have owned and operated The Oasis off-campus "students only" housing complex.
"No security or other personnel of The Oasis took any measures to prohibit the excessive and underage drinking that took place for hours in the common areas of the complex," the lawsuit claims.
Hours after the alleged rape, the plaintiff went to a local hospital to undergo forensic examination and filed a police report with a Campbell County Sheriff’s Department deputy. The lawsuit claims photographs were taken of numerous bruises and lacerations on her body and she was discharged the next day.
Doe also reported the assault to Liberty University campus police but was told that campus police would not investigate the incident because it was outside of their jurisdiction. Doe claims she was told to file a report with the school's Title IX office. Despite contacting the Title IX office, Doe alleges the school didn't investigate her claims for the rest of the semester. The lawsuit claimed Doe was contacted in late May about an investigation into another student's "substance use policy.”
"[The school's] outreach had nothing to do with the rape and assault reported to
Liberty, but rather was the beginning of a months-long effort by Liberty to harass, intimidate, and retaliate against the Plaintiff," the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit comes after 12 women filed a class-action lawsuit against Liberty last July, accusing the Lynchburg-based higher education institution of failing to adequately investigate credible claims of sexual assault.
The complaint argued that Liberty created “an unsafe campus environment” by misusing its honor code, “The Liberty Way.” The code, among other things, prohibits extramarital sex, consuming alcohol and attending events where alcohol is served.
Last year, Mother Jonesreported a similar case, this time 11 women who decided to make public their experiences with sexual abuse at Moody Bible college, who pointed out that when a victim goes to the school administration after being raped they "get shamed and blamed... The school's "beliefs and dynamics, former students say, contribute to a culture in which men are given control over women, making them feel entitled to women’s bodies. And since purity culture assumes an end goal of marriage between two virgins, it makes sex into something mysterious and forbidden-- yet also prized."
"While to some degree," Mother Jones reported "all college campuses share blame in failing to create a safe environment for female students, schools that adhere to a religious standard have a very specific set of circumstances that complicate what should be straightforward: that sexual assault is a crime that requires consequences for the perpetrators and protection for the survivors... The heart of the problem is that religious tenets at places like Moody and Liberty are inextricably woven into campus and academic culture, creating a fundamental conflict with Title IX’s aim to eliminate discrimination on the basis of sex. 'In evangelicalism, there’s a sort of fantasy, that we would like to be just really peculiar in our ability to forgive and restore and to not look like other communities, where the forgiveness of Jesus and his demeanor and restoration would be exemplified,' the current Moody professor told me. 'My sense is that we often offer that to sexual abusers. We want to be excessively, strangely forgiving…and of course the sexual abusers, these guys are predators-- they know how to talk the talk.'... Title IX, of course, is supposed to provide some measure of accountability. But its enforcement can be inconsistent, particularly at religious institutions, which are provided a carveout that allows them to claim that the law is in conflict with their beliefs... The law became even weaker under former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who expanded the applicability of religious exemptions to include nearly any school that decided to claim them. What’s more, DeVos made it possible for schools to invoke the carveout’s protection at any time, even after a complaint was filed."
It is time, they’ve decided, for others to witness what they see as a systemic failure to address sexual misconduct at the school that describes itself as "the world’s most influential Bible college," the place "where God transforms the world through you." It is time to expose the people who were tasked with protecting them-- under the laws of the country, under the laws of God-- who at best looked the other way, at worst blamed them for the violence perpetrated against them.
And finally, it is time, they argue, to move beyond the purity culture that has defined and infected Moody-- and imperiled women on campus-- for far too long. "All the responsibilities are on the girls to be pure," says Anna Schutte, who graduated from Moody in 2020. "You know, if a guy has a porn addiction and a sex addiction, you should pray for him. But if a girl gets assaulted, it’s her fault."
...When most people think of Title IX, it comes down to sexual assault. But the environment at Moody, and the insidious way it devalues women, enabled a whole range of abuse and other potential Title IX violations. And in these cases, Moody proved wholly inept in supporting vulnerable students. If, after all, the powers that be refuse even to acknowledge that anything sexual, let alone unwanted, could be happening on campus, how could they possibly provide a remedy when it does?