(RNS) — In 2012, Boz Tchividjian, grandson of famed evangelist Billy Graham, drove to the Lynchburg, Virginia, airport in his family minivan to pick up Stephen Jones, great-grandson of fundamentalist Bob Jones Sr.
The meeting, though planned, was highly improbable.
Known for banning interracial dating into the 21st century and having rules too rigid even for Graham, a former student who left after one semester, Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina, is typically wary of outsiders. So it was a shock when Stephen Jones, then president of Bob Jones, invited Tchividjian’s nonprofit Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment, known by its acronym GRACE, to examine the university’s handing of sexual abuse allegations.
The invitation came in the wake of the 2011 Penn State sex abuse scandal and amid nationwide conversations about institutional cover-up of sexual abuse. While BJU never stated a specific reason for hiring GRACE, survivors had approached Stephen Jones asking for a probe into the school’s handling of abuse, and he was a main driver behind the decision to hire Tchividjian’s nonprofit.
“For him to engage GRACE was a huge risk for him,” said Tchividjian, an attorney and longtime abuse advocate who is no longer formally associated with GRACE, and who spoke to RNS in his personal capacity. “He was getting a lot of pushback from various folks in his community, in the Bob Jones community, including leadership, not to hire GRACE. And despite that, I remember him telling me, ‘Bob Jones cannot move forward until we have fully addressed the past.’”
What followed was a 22-month investigation that included over 100 interviews, roughly 50 of which were with self-identified abuse survivors. The resulting 300-page report, released on Dec. 11, 2014, found the school’s emphasis on discipline and approach to biblical counseling was harming student abuse survivors.
“What was the most damaging was how they used faith, theology, Scripture, to silence victims, to shame victims, to scare victims,” said Tchividjian, an attorney advocate for abuse survivors. “The victims were being revictimized, while the offenders were being forgiven and restored.”
According to Bob Jones University, the school has significantly strengthened its response to abuse disclosures over the past decade.
“In the years since the GRACE Report, we have implemented a number of significant changes, including establishing the office of Student Care and requiring all employees and students to undergo sexual abuse awareness training with Ministry Safe, to improve how we handle cases of sexual abuse—whenever it occurred in a student’s life—and to ensure a safe and supportive environment for all members of our community,” said an email from a university spokesperson.
When asked whether it had followed the GRACE report recommendations, the school pointed RNS to a web page containing the school’s official apology and other policy updates. BJU also provided a link to its most recent Clery Report, which states that no incidents of rape or sex offenses have been reported since at least 2021, and said BJU continues to work with Ministry Safe to annually review and update abuse policies. The site also notes the school removed online sermons and other materials “found to be insensitive to abuse or assault victims” and has established a student care office so students can disclose abuse to a different department than the one that handles discipline.
