Jerry Falwell, Jr.

Jerry Lamon Falwell Jr. (; born June 17, 1962) is an American attorney, former academic administrator, and Evangelical fundamentalist. Starting with his 2007 appointment upon the death of his father, televangelist and conservative activist Jerry Falwell, Falwell served as the president of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, until resigning in August 2020 amid a sex scandal.

Early life and education Jerry Falwell Jr. was born on June 17, 1962, the eldest son of Jerry Sr. and Macel Falwell (née Pate). He attended private schools in the Lynchburg area, including Lynchburg Christian Academy (later renamed as Liberty Christian Academy), from where he graduated in 1980. He then attended Liberty University, where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts in history and religious studies in 1984,

Liberty University was transformed under Falwell's leadership. When he took over in 2007, the school had listed assets of $259 million. For the fiscal year ending in 2017 its assets surpassed $2.5 billion. Under Falwell Jr., Liberty University came under scrutiny for its alleged authoritarian control over employees and students, nepotism toward Falwell family-owned businesses in the school's investments, and increasing influence of Falwell's wife Becki in school affairs. Beginning in 2001, Falwell had established two companies that enabled him to make property deals with Liberty-affiliated nonprofits, and his two sons and their wives were on Liberty's payroll. A 2019 Politico article described the university as a "dictatorship" in which Falwell ruled through fear; it also reported that the university had sold merchandise promoting Donald Trump's presidential campaign, and that Falwell Jr. had crude discussions about his sex life at work and had shown other Liberty employees provocative photos of his wife. Falwell responded with a letter saying the congressmen were "making many false statements and erroneous conclusions," and they showed "a fundamental lack of understanding of the scope and purpose" of the First Amendment, Title IX and Executive Order 13864. A Reuters article, published in August 2019, revealed that Falwell signed a real estate deal in 2016 that transferred the university's sports facilities, which had become a "drain on the university resources," to his personal trainer, who did not put down any money for the deal. The publication reported that instead, Liberty agreed to credit $580,000 off the purchase price as payment for leasing the property back to Liberty through 2025. The photo was taken at a theme party where they dressed as characters from the raunchy Canadian television sitcom Trailer Park Boys. On August 23, Falwell made a public statement that his wife had had an affair and that they had been targets of blackmail. The next day Reuters published a story in which the man with whom Falwell's wife had an affair claimed that Falwell regularly watched him engaging in sexual activities with Falwell's wife. Later in the day, on August 24, Falwell agreed to resign from Liberty University. Falwell immediately denied this, while the university claimed that negotiations were ongoing. Because he left his position without a formal accusation or admission of wrongdoing, Falwell was reportedly entitled to a $10.5million severance package. but in December 2020 dropped the lawsuit.

On April 15, 2021, Liberty University sued Falwell for $40 million in damages for breach of contract and violation of fiduciary duty. In November 2021, Falwell revived his defamation lawsuit against Liberty University. Falwell has also sued the University in an attempt to receive $8.5 million in retirement funds, claiming that he met every requirement agreed upon in the Supplemental Executive Retirement Plan to receive payment. He would go on to sue the school again for the alleged exploitation of the trademark and image of his father, Jerry Falwell Sr., without consulting the Falwell family or "authorization of the Dr. Jerry L. Falwell Family Trust." In 2024, Liberty University was ordered to pay Falwell $15.3 million in a settlement concerning his resignation.

Possible governmental positions In November 2016, President-elect Donald Trump offered him the position of United States secretary of education, but he turned down the offer citing personal reasons and because he did not want to leave Liberty University for more than two years. In January 2017, Falwell was asked by President Trump to head a task force on reforms for the United States Department of Education. In June 2017, Falwell confirmed to the Chronicle of Higher Education that he would be one of 15 college presidents participating in the task force. Six Democratic lawmakers wrote a letter to Betsy Devos expressing concern that there had been no public explanation by the administration about the purview of the task force. The task force was never formed.

Controversies

2019 sex scandal In 2019, Reuters reported that Falwell asked Trump fixer Michael Cohen for a personal favor: to help get rid of photos described by Cohen as being the kind that would typically be kept "between husband and wife." At least three of the photos were later discovered to be of Falwell's wife.

According to Brandon Ambrosino, writing in Politico in 2019: a twenty-year-old man which operates under the name the Miami Hostel.

In late August, Reuters contacted Falwell and his wife with its initial reporting on his wife's alleged affair with the pool attendant they had met in 2012. Shortly after, on August 23, 2020, Falwell announced in a public statement that his wife had an "improper relationship" several years earlier with a man who later threatened to reveal the affair "unless we agreed to pay him substantial monies". On August 24, Reuters published its report that the man was the pool attendant with whom Falwell had invested in the hostel. The man, now twenty-nine years old, said he began a sexual relationship with the Falwells when he was twenty. He claimed that the affair started the same month he met the couple, in March 2012, and continued into 2018. Tilley admitted to a three-year affair with the pool attendant, Giancarlo Granda, starting in March 2012 and continuing through 2014. She said they met when Granda was working at the Fontainebleau hotel in Miami Beach, and that they had made sex tapes with each other. Falwell said that he once walked in on his wife and the pool attendant having sex; he called it "traumatizing", though he had stayed to watch the couple. Tilley said that Granda pressured her into sex on one occasion in 2018 although she "kept saying no", and she realized later it could be considered assault. Granda denied the accusation but did not comment on the rest of the interview, promising answers in a forthcoming book

Political views

Homosexuality and LGBT rights

In April 2009, following the Miss USA same-sex marriage controversy, Falwell offered a full scholarship to Carrie Prejean, a beauty pageant contestant who stated during the Miss USA pageant: Well I think it's great that Americans are able to choose one way or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. You know what, in my country, in my family, I think I believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman, no offense to anybody out there. But that's how I was raised and I believe that it should be between a man and a woman.In August 2013, Falwell announced that if the federal government forced recipients of its aid to comply with LGBTQ discrimination protections, he would forgo the money. In March 2019, Falwell again caused controversy among LGBT advocates at Liberty University when he said his granddaughter would be "raised according to her God-given gender".

Muslims Speaking of the 2015 San Bernardino attack, Falwell stated during the university's 2015 convocation that if "some of those people had got what I have in my back pocket right now," the attack would not have happened. He said that he was astounded that Barack Obama believed more gun control was the best response to the attack. Falwell said that he'd "always thought that, if more good people had concealed-carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they walked in and killed them."

His comments were criticized by Ibrahim Hooper from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights and advocacy group. According to one report, Falwell was only heard saying, "then we could end those Muslims before they walked in", with the "and killed them" part drowned out by applause. Falwell later said he was referring to Muslims committing terrorist attacks and not Muslims in general.

Donald Trump On January 26, 2016, Falwell endorsed Donald Trump for the Republican nomination in the 2016 presidential election, causing some Liberty University alumni and other evangelicals to suggest that Falwell had "sold his soul". It was later revealed that Falwell made his endorsement after Trump's personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen had embarked on a mission to recover "personal" photos involving the Falwells. On July 21, 2016, at the RNC convention in Cleveland, Ohio, Falwell called Trump "America's blue-collar billionaire" and "one of the greatest visionaries of our time", and said he was the candidate most likely to defend the "right to bear arms", "stop Iran...from becoming a nuclear power", and "appoint conservative pro-life justices to the Supreme Court". thumb In an August 19, 2016, editorial in The Washington Post, Falwell compared Trump to Winston Churchill.

After Trump won the election, a group called the Red Letter Christians criticized Falwell for his pivotal role in "forging the alliance between white evangelicals and Donald J. Trump, who won 81 percent of their vote." A few months later, Trump, by that time a personal friend of Falwell's, gave Liberty's commencement address.

Asked in a January 2019 interview, "Is there anything President Trump could do that would endanger that support from you or other evangelical leaders?", Falwell answered, "No."

Israel In June 2016, Falwell expressed support for Israel when Liberty University moved to invest $5million of its endowment in Israel. Falwell stated, "Liberty is glad to be part of supporting the only democracy that's a close ally of the United States [in an area] that is in such turmoil right now."

Coronavirus response and conspiracy theories

In March 2020, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) began to spread quickly in the United States, leading to the widespread closures of schools and universities. Within weeks, most universities in Virginia had announced that they were discontinuing in-person classes and moving their instruction to online-only. Falwell, however, defied those who called for such measures to limit the spread of the disease. On March 13, he announced that in-person classes at Liberty would resume after spring break (March 14–22). He said that people were overreacting to the coronavirus outbreak, alleged that Democrats were trying to use the situation to harm Trump,

Liberty University lead physician Thomas W. Eppes Jr. informed Falwell, "We've lost the ability to corral this thing." He said that the mortality rate among young people was low and said the media was exaggerating the threat of COVID-19: "They are willing to destroy the economy just to hurt Trump."

Lynchburg mayor Treney Tweedy and Virginia governor Ralph Northam criticized Falwell's decision to reopen the school. Marybeth Davis Baggett, a professor at Liberty University, protested the reopening in a March 23 op-ed published by The Washington Post and Religion News Service.

Of Liberty University's 15,000 on-campus students, 1,900 students initially returned; 800 of those subsequently left again. Falwell said the university administration had "no idea" how many other students had returned to off-campus housing. By March 30, Eppes reported, almost a dozen returning students had symptoms of COVID-19, eight students had been told to self-isolate, three had been tested, and one student (who lived off campus) had tested positive for the COVID-19 virus. By March 30, the school implemented a policy requiring any student who returned to school to self-quarantine for 14 days.

An anonymous student sued Liberty University in April, stating in the lawsuit, "Liberty's decision to tell its students that they could remain on campus to continue to use their housing, meal plans, parking, and the benefits of the services and activities for which their fees paid, was not only illusory and emptybecause there were no more on-campus classes — but it was also extremely dangerous and irresponsible." In 2023 a judge dismissed the case and said the suit "fails on the merits."

Personal life Jerry Falwell Jr. is married to Becki Tilley and lives on a farm in Bedford County, Virginia. Falwell Jr. also owns the Alton Hostel (also called the Miami Hostel) in Miami's South Beach neighborhood.