Falwell Says Liberty University Is Using Lawsuit to Shame Him | Inside Higher Ed

Former Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr. is seeking dismissal of a lawsuit his former employer filed against him, arguing that it amounts to a “public shaming,” the Associated Press reported.

“The rehashing of these events and protected defamation of Falwell through litigation serves one mission — ruining Falwell’s reputation through mischaracterization of events and public shaming through out-of-context pictures filed in a public complaint,” Falwell argued in a court document filed last week in Lynchburg Circuit Court.

Liberty sued Falwell in April, alleging that the former president and son of the evangelical university’s founder breached his contract by withholding information that put both Falwell’s and Liberty’s reputations at risk. The university faulted Falwell for failing to disclose what he claims were efforts to blackmail him over an extramarital affair involving his wife, and for failing “to timely disclose and address the issue of his personal impairment by alcohol, which impairment led Falwell Jr. to actions and courses of conduct detrimental to the spiritual mission of Liberty.”

Falwell resigned from Liberty last year after Reuters reported on claims about Falwell’s personal life. He’d previously been placed on leave after sharing a vacation photo in which he posed with a woman with his pants unzipped and with what appeared to be a drink in his hand. A caption on the photo described it as “black water” and “a prop only.”