Bob Jones Hires Independent Investigator for Abuse Allegations

By Andrew Moore
The Patch
November 11, 2012

http://mauldin.patch.com/articles/bob-jones-hires-independent-investigator-for-abuse-allegations-b2360399

Bob Jones University has hired an ombudsman to examine sexual abuse allegations and whether or not the school has responded appropriately to them, FoxCarolina.com reports. 

Bob Jones University announced this week that hired an organization known as GRACE - Godly Response To Abuse In the Christian Environment - to investigate whether the university had responded adequately to abuse allegations in the past.

BJU, a private Christian school in Greenville, has received an increasing amount of attention over sexual abuse allegations, most recently from then-student Chris Peterman, who drew the university's ire when he publicly called for the resignation of trustee Chuck Phelps, who allegedly forced a woman at a church in his native New Hampshire to ask her congregation for forgiveness and made her move after the abuse resulted in pregnancy. Peterman was later expelled for various offenses the university said was not directly related to his protests. 

Claims of abuse on the BJU campus itself are backed up by Department of Education records, which show nine separate incidents of sexual assault occuring on campus in 2011 alone.  

In a statement regarding the ombudsman hiring, the university said, "(BJU President Dr. Stephen Jones) wanted to make absolutely certain BJU's policies and procedures both fully comply with the law and ensure a loving, scripturally based response."