March 26th 2020

By Bill Berkowitz

The CNN headline is shocking, yet perhaps not that surprising. That Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. would allow about 1,900 students to return to its Lynchburg, Virginia, campus in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak is irresponsible and appalling. Some news reports have pointed out that the University might have as many as 5,000 students on campus in the very near future. Not only will students be endangered, but Falwell Jr. has ordered faculty members – some with serious health conditions or family members with underlying health issues – to return to campus as well. 

Falwell’s decision to open the campus may contradict the recommendations of scientists, public health workers and local political officials, but will likely sit well with Donald Trump, whose craving for normalcy is bordering on the pathological. Falwell Jr. is a big time loyal supporter and major apologist for the president. 

According to CNN, “Falwell's decision to bring students back to campus flies against the guidance provided by state officials and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

”I think we, in a way, are protecting the students by having them on campus together,” Falwell said. account to the Guardian, “Falwell then invoked a since disproven theory that young people ‘don’t have conditions that put them at risk’”.

The Guardian’s Kenya Evelyn reported that “One subject is the vulnerability of young people, despite Falwell’s insisting they aren’t at risk, data shows 20% of the hospitalized patients and 12% of the intensive care patients are millennials, or between the ages of 20 and 44.”

Falwell’s actions are not surprising given his recent appearance on the Fox News Channel’s “Fox and Friends,” where he claimed that people were “overreacting” to the global pandemic, Americans United for Separation of Church and State’s Rob Boston reported.

“Falwell parroted an argument that’s popping up in conservative circles these days – that coronavirus … is similar to the seasonal flu and it’s no big deal. Falwell vowed to keep Liberty open but had to reverse himself after Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam banned all gatherings over 100 people.”

“You know, it's just strange to me how so many are overreacting,” the evangelical leader declared. “The H1N1 virus, in 2009, killed 17,000 people. It was the flu, also, I think. And there was not the same hype. It was—you just didn't see it on the news 24/7. And it makes you wonder if there's a political reason for that.”

Falwell also staked out the conspiracy angle on COVID-19, claiming that it is an attempt to hurt Trump: “Impeachment didn’t work, the Mueller report didn't work, Article 25 didn’t work. Maybe this is their next attempt to get Trump.” He then went on to claim that Trump’s buddy, North Korea, in cahoots with China, cooked up the coronavirus to destroy America. 

Liberty University Origin Story: Back in the day, Falwell Jr.’s father. the Rev. Jerry Falwell, envisioned a university that would bring young Christian men and women to a beautiful campus in Lynchburg, Virginia. That student body would multiply and that campus would grow. And due to Falwell-esque hubris, and the sexual scandals that took down fellow televangelists Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker, Liberty was brought to the edge of financial ruin. But along came the Unification Church’s Rev. Sun Myung Moon, who helped bail out the finally troubled university. Liberty grew, adding more students, more professors, and more buildings, and a first class athletic program, with a football stadium seating over 19,000 people. The university leaders envisioned the future, saw that the future was online classes. And that little institute of higher learning that the late Rev. Jerry Falwell once envisioned as being the pride of Lynchburg, Virginia, and the petri-dish for developing right-wing ideologues, has grown to have the second largest enrollment in online education courses in the United States of America. 

Falwell Jr.’s move comes despite Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s statewide order that bans gatherings of more than 10 people.

“The governor is concerned by these reports, and members of the administration have already spoken directly with Jerry Falwell Jr.," said press secretary Alena Yarmosky. "All Virginia colleges and universities have a responsibility to comply with public health directions and protect the safety of their students, faculty, and larger communities. Liberty University is no exception."

“Our thinking was, 'Let's get them back as soon as we can -- the ones who want to come back," Falwell said in a statement. 

“I think we have a responsibility to our students — who paid to be here, who want to be here, who love it here — to give them the ability to be with their friends, to continue their studies, enjoy the room and board they’ve already paid for and to not interrupt their college life,” Falwell Jr. said, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

“I think we, in a way, are protecting the students by having them on campus together,” Falwell added, according to the Dispatch. “Ninety-nine percent of them are not at the age to be at risk and they don’t have conditions that put them at risk.”

“The mayor and I thanked him for this shift that we believed meant that students would be told to not come back to campus with a few exceptions,” Lynchburg city manager Bonnie Svrcek told The Daily Beast. “We could not be more disappointed in the action that Jerry took in telling students they could come back and take their online classes on campus."

According to the Guardian, “Critics, including Liberty University faculty, lashed out at Falwell’s decision. Marybeth Davis Baggett, an English professor, said Falwell was putting ‘the Lynchburg community,’ their ‘health and lives at risk.’

In a story she wrote, posted at the website of Religion News Service, Baggett stated clearly that “It’s time for the Liberty University board to stop him and shut the campus down before it's too late,”  (). 

“Faculty and staff are also required to report, despite the fact that telecommuting options are readily available. As a Liberty faculty member, I have been told that my colleagues and I must conduct our classes from our offices, even though that instruction is now being delivered virtually. We are also expected to hold office hours and welcome students for face-to-face interaction.

“He has repeatedly made it clear that he canceled residential classes for legal, not moral, reasons. In fact, his public comments on the pandemic have manifested bravado, self-congratulation and callousness in the extreme, as, even this week on the Todd Starnes radio show, he spewed far-fetched, unsubstantiated and misleading information about the coronavirus outbreak.”

Baggett added: “I have heard from many at the university who have health issues or loved ones with health issues and are distressed about the leadership’s insensitivity and profligacy with impunity. These folks can speak up only on pain of risking their careers.”

Baggett told the News & Advance that she would not return to campus during the pandemic: “Liberty is not a bubble where the virus would be contained.”