We recently discussed the scandals surrounding Jerry Falwell Jr. from his use of a personal yacht of a Nascar mogul to the sordid allegations stemming from an affair by his wife, Becki. After resigning from his position at Liberty University, Falwell quoted Martin Luther King: “The quote that keeps going through my mind this morning is Martin Luther King Jr: ‘Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty I’m free at last.'” It may be a moment of freedom for Falwell but it will hardly be free for Liberty University which promised “full compensation” that could reportedly reach $10.5 million.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Falwell is looking at the windfall severance package including $2.5 million for two years of his salary plus a one-time payment of roughly $8 million. That latter amount is based on a contractual clause giving Falwell full pay if he resigned with restricted responsibilities.
Falwell insists “I didn’t break any rules—I get my compensation.” That would depend on the conditions of his contract. Many employment contracts have provisions concerning actions that bring controversy or ridicule upon the organization or business. However, even discounting the sex scandal, Falwell is accused of a sweetheart deal with a Nascar mogul who received lucrative contracts from Liberty University while giving the Falwell family use of his luxury yacht. Given Falwell’s treatment of the university as a personal fiefdom, it would not be surprising if his contract is devoid of such limits or conditions.
I have been a long critic of the contracts for university presidents, which can reach obscene levels of compensation and benefits.
The answer to the question above is that it is indeed possible because of the historic abuse of such contracts. As I said in 2004, university presidents often handpick board members and then gradually increase their benefits and compensation. There is little scrutiny of such packages and part of my criticism of the recent effort to disband the National Rifle Association is the selective focus by prosecutors.
If a multi-million compensation package is approved by the Board, every member of the board of trustees should resign in disgrace. They have stood by as Falwell careened from one scandal to another. This record shows that his interests were treated as paramount rather than those of the institution, its faculty, its staff, or its students. The only positive aspect of this scandal would be if the Falwell contract led to a broader debate over the salaries and contracts afforded to academic presidents and those heading nonprofit organizations across the country.
Just that the Milwaukee Bucks refused to play in support of that guy who fought with the cops in Kenosha. They should use their soapbox to end the rioting instead. But hey, that’s life the NBA/Progressive bubble.
^Just saw that . . .
It pays to pray……….pays a lot.
If he is paid anything by the University, shame on the administration and its attorneys who entered into a contract that would provide for it – while failing to provide for no compensation of any kind when such misconduct occurs while a University employee/respresentative. If the University pays anything other than what it provided by contract .. even more shameful.
So Hunter Biden was a horn dog and dabbled in illicit drugs. He cashed in to some degree on his Daddy’s name. Put him up against Trump and he is sterling. Trump defiled numerous women, disrespected almost all of them, slept with porn stars and who knows what else when his latest bought and paid for wife was getting over having a kid. In his own words, he really appreciated being able to grab pu**# and get away with it. Trump rode through life on his Daddy’s coat tails. His first project was a gift from Dad. Without his inheritance he would be selling time shares. Trump screwed thousands out of their hard earned wages when he went bankrupt six times, unpaid bills, wages, loans, etc. Trump took credit for money others donated to his charities and then performed tax evasion gymnastics. Trump and Dad were fined big time and ordered to stop racially profiling when renting apartments, RACISM. Trump failed at a dozen + businesses, leaving unpaid bills and unpaid wages. Trump’s entire career has been one of a BSer extraordinaire. He can barely form a sentence. If you like and respect these qualities, then he’s your champion. He’s no champion of America. He’s a champion of Trump, fact. The perfect illustration of who Trump really is can be seen in a photo of him climbing the steps to Air Force One. It is raining. He is holding an umbrella over his head. His son Baron trails behind, no umbrella. Trump couldn’t care less.
Isn’t it time for your nap, George? Have you taken your meds today?
Oh,
LAUGH,
Thanks for reading.
________________
“The flak only gets heavy when you’re over the target.”
– Anonymous WWII Bomber Pilot
“I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.”
– Bill Clinton
At least he had sex with someone. You could take note and have some too! Your frustration is obvious and unflattering. Relax man.
Oh,
LAUGH,
Thanks for reading…again!
He didn’t have sex with someone………he just liked to watch.
This is a Christian thing, forgiveness. The Catholics have it best. They can whack somebody and then go to confession, do whatever the priest says to do, and then forget about it. Christ would never have worked as a savior if he didn’t save us from our trespasses. Falwell and his type can go on preaching whatever it is they want and then cavort with the pool boy knowing that there is redemption and legal recourse; legal recourse being in some ways a religion, man made like Christianity, the law. Now if one is an atheist, one doesn’t get forgiven and has to carry those bags of misdemeanors along as they get heavier and heavier, until the end. A religious person has a hell or a heaven to look forward to after they die, because they can take as many mulligans as they want. An atheist’s hell or heaven comes along before they die, when they stop doing whatever they were doing and start to think about all their noble accomplishments or heaven or all their sins or hell. That pool boy for Mrs Falwell is heaven on earth because she gets forgiven. If the pool boy is an atheist then eventually some woman is going to make his life a living hell. Now Trump, he’s a narcissistic, megalomaniac, sociopath; so he’ll never know.
Isaac, finally your chatter has some truth in it. Religion is indeed a way for people to manage the difficulties of life. it’s a tool that helps people and communities keep on trucking.
You have to have had the experience in life of being an atheist, to understand Isaac’s point, perhaps. I was, and I get it. But, I found older tools than the newer ones, that had broken. The older ones are stronger, and more flexible, don’t break so easily. More useful than one can imagine when you first grip them in the hand, they take decades of practice before they bear their fullest fruits.
Believing in God, as per the Christian, Judaic, Islamic, etc religions is not something one can ‘choose’ to do, or I would. Either you believe in an ethereal being, force, creator, or you don’t. If you do, and you believe the stories that go with the creator then you automatically are in opposition with the essence of a one ethereal force. Believing in God is not the same as believing in a god or a specific religion. Every religion negates itself to some degree by essentially touting its closeness to God. From my vantage point it has to be almost physiological. For the large part it is learned behavior. Religion as learned behavior addresses the primal questions. A person who believes in God truly, does not choose to believe. That person has to believe, no choice. As a person who cannot believe in a God, does not find it necessary to answer the primal questions this way, I have no choice either. For the Falwell types, religion comes with a whole stack of get out of jail free cards. Sometimes you miss a turn but a few Hail Marys and bingo, back on the horse, or pool boy.
Mr. Kurtz, it’s pure hypocrisy what fallwel is seeking. These are the same people who scream and holler about law and order, that there are consequences to breaking rules either moral or legal. These very same people spend an inordinate amount of time judging others on their misdeeds, behavior, and wow they chose to live.
It’s very convenient to have this “forgiveness” culture when it happens that they get caught. It’s a convenient excuse to commit crimes, sexual deviancy, molestation, etc. because ultimately you’ll be “forgiven”. It’s purely an exercise in BS.
Getting a nice multi million dollar severance is just rewarding the behavior. No real consequences other than embarrassment. Students should rightly demand refunds due to the hypocritical nature of the university’s policy. Or change the policy to remove the moral codes requiring expulsion.
Let’s check the moral turpitude clause. NDAs, Golden Parachutes and other favorable separation stipulations are parts of most, if not all, compensation packages and are SOP. What’s the problem?
Liberty University appears to be “private property.”
________________________________________
“[Private property is] that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual.”
– James Madison
______________
The 5th Amendment right to private property is not qualified by the Constitution and, therefore, absolute.
Liberty University is not the purview of “other individuals” or Congress.
Could reportedly reach is another way of saying allegedly or not proven.,
Do not send your kid or scholar donee to any private university unless they have full transparency and post online, the salary, benefits and other money going to the entire staff and trustees.
Since the Trump cult finds nothing wrong about being a con-man, they will find no fault in Falwell.
Jonathan, do I note a hint of jealousy in your upset at the compensation of college/university president’s golden parachutes? 😉
This from the juvenile ignoramus who repeatedly tells us that everyone within the large groups of people he disagrees with are immoral, or some other category beyond salvation. This is what true believers or those truly suffering arrested development have to believe to prop up their fragile and narrow belief systems.
My comment above was intended as a comment to TIA’s post at the bottom of the page.
Bookless in Gainesville:
We’ll just call you Benson’s Sockpuppet as you rail against others in all the wrong places. Ignoramus? Heal Thyself. Lol
This from the juvenile ignoramus
No, Mr. Dunning-Kruger:
He’s nearly 60, has a mess of kids, is a licensed attorney, and has been for 13 years in charge of an institution which employs and enrolls thousands of people. Unlike you, he’s never given any indication in online fora of chronic mendacity or narcissism.
Who TIA, your imaginary friend? Nothing in your earlier post that I responded to mentioned a 3rd party. The “juvenile ignoramus” in my post was an affectionate reference to you.
Whoa! Pulling out the ol’ D-K deflection against someone else and topping it off with an accusation of narcissism! Do you have any self-awareness at all? Funny stuff.
Looks like you’re paying attention in class!
If a multi-million compensation package is approved by the Board, every member of the board of trustees should resign in disgrace. They have stood by as Falwell careened from one scandal to another.
No, this is the scandal, and it’s fairly penny ante as scandals go. You have a tendency to fancy a nasty little news story is a scandal; that mentality is twee (but to be expected from faculty).
His severance package may be a scandal. You’re fussing over rumors.
Keep in mind that the $10.5 million (if that is indeed his severance) might be the discounted present value of his pension and medical benefits. Were that the case, given his life expectancy and reasonable discount rates, that would indicate retirement benefits of about $600,000 a year. I’m guessing Liberty employs about 9,000 people in all capacities. Applying some rules of thumb, a compensation package of about $900,000 a year is satisfactory for a common-and-garden public or philanthropic executive with that many people working under him. We’re he actually on-deck for retirement benefits around about 2/3 of the value of the compensation package in his last years on the job, that actually would be fiduciary misconduct. A typical retiree today is receiving private retirement income in the neighborhood of 25% of what he was earning in his last years on the job; Falwell’s early retirement should cut that in half. That would amount to a benefit stream approaching $120,000 a year, for a discounted present value of $2 million. Keep in mind this is an evangelical apostolate, so that would be at the upper bound of what he should be receiving.
He has skills that would be of use to another philanthropy, and if he can land a position somewhere else, he should do that. He just shouldn’t be in a leadership position. Keep in mind that it wouldn’t matter what the circumstances of his departure from Liberty were. His evangelical affiliation would taint him in nonprofit world.
Prof. Turley, you’re making much ado about nothing. Falwell has done nothing wrong. It was his wife who allegedly had an affair, not him. There are much more serious issues in this country, particularly the racists who riot every time police shoot a black perv.
We don’t actually know what happened at this point. Falwell’s people say they can prove their point with contemporanous documentation. That remains to be seen. I’m guessing the truth is closer to what he says than what Ganda says.
He didn’t do ‘nothing wrong’. The Falwells have embarrassed the institution and need to shuffle off. The thing is, the media would be happy to attempt to trash their reputations if they were just breathing in and out, so the board should give the institution a thick hide as a matter of policy. However, the Falwells actually did do something hinky. The sad thing is that the Falwells, father and son, have been talented institution builders. That kind of talent is thin on the ground just about anywhere. Finding someone who has what it takes to replace him will be a challenge.
Will this cause Liberty U. to collapse? Unfortunately not, methinks.
Why would it and why would you want it to? Because they’re not sucking up public dollars the way your outfit is and that embarrasses you?
Liberty is actually the private institution with the highest brick-and-mortar census in the Commonwealth of Virginia. They’re an important employer in Lynchburg, Va, which is a small city. Why would you want Lynchburg’s economy injured that way, bar that you’re a vicious little twit in addition to being senile?
Benson’s a creepy old man with a disdain for all things traditional. That he wishes ill and ruin on conservative college kids and Bible Belt small town residents should come as no surprise. The only surprise is that he got his venomous reply in the right spot for a change.
Dance, Pool Boy, Dance!
Didn’t Rambo Spanier, former President of Penn State, the ‘Sanctuary City for Pedophiles’ receive $3 million when he resigned from Ped State in the JoePerv (I enjoy a tight young boy’s rectum!) Paterno scandal, in exchange for his extensive kiddie porn collection?
Do you make stupid slanders of everyone who comes into your gaze? There was no Joe Paterno scandal. Messrs. Paterno and McQueary forwarded what they knew to the appropriate parties in the Penn State apparat. Those parties then dropped the ball. No employee of Penn State was accused of sexual misconduct. A Penn State retiree was accused of doing so in the athletic complex showers in 2002.
Joe Paterno was a pedophile who raped hundreds of young boys over his 50 years as Head Pervert at Pedophile State University, Sorry that COVID-19 will prevent Ped State from playing the University of Sodom in the annual NAMBLA Bowl, scheduled for the Jeffrey Epstein Field at University Park.
‘A Penn State retiree was accused of doing so in the athletic complex showers in 2002.’
A Penn State retiree, as in PSU Defensive Coach Jerry Sandusky? Many Paterno worshippers regarded Jerry Sandusky as a god after the 1986 Fiesta Bowl. Sandusky could have chosen a Head Coach position at any top level collegiate football program, except people knew that he and Paterno enjoyed small boys and watching kiddie porn. The Penn State Creamery for many years offered the ‘Sandusky’- an inverted waffle cone covered with chocolate sauce with a scoop of peach ice cream on each side. Sandusky retired only because Pedophile State sought to avoid liability, but Sandusky (and Paterno) continued the grooming and raping of young boys.
Penn State continues to traffick in the child sex exploitation criminal enterprise. PSU bribed former FBI Director Louis Freeh to whitewash the scandal, and then bribed former US Senator George Mitchell (who visited Jeffrey Epstein’s Fantasy Island multiple times, according to FAA records) to reduce PSU’s penalty.
The world knows now that Penn State represents the most vile, corrupt, and darkest evils.
‘A Penn State retiree was accused of doing so in the athletic complex showers in 2002.’ The ‘Penn State retiree’, Jerry Sandusky, former Defensive Coach and Joe Paterno’s right hand man (the very thought of the sick actions in which these two perverts participated retches the soul) was not only accused, but tried, convicted, and sentenced to prison for his PSU financed and supported child rapes.
The university is founded on and depends upon a specific illustration of morality, in text, actions, and teachings. Falwell broke his contract through failure to perform. He acted in opposition to this illustration/illusion/whatever. He failed to perform based on the agreement of memorandum, contract, whatever. Falwell broke the contract. He might even be liable for any to all sums he has received thus far if his dastardly goings on can be shown to have also taken place in the way back. The university, given that it is founded on fairy tales and other stories, should be able to access Mr. Peabody’s WABAC machine and find out. Send in Trump’s lawyers to sort this out. They hired a bible thumper and they got a pervert. Case closed.
As Hitchens said of Falwell Sr: “It’s a pity there isn’t a hell for him to go to.”
Religion is outdated garbage and should be nowhere near real power.
The liberals who post here are always unintentionally revealing.
Say that ten seconds after you die.
Having known non-religious people in the older age brackets well, it’s amazing to me how their approach to these discussions differed from the vociferous atheists on these boards. Arrested development you cannot fix.
This from the juvenile ignoramus who repeatedly tells us that everyone within the large groups of people he disagrees with are immoral, or some other category beyond salvation. This is what true believers or those truly suffering arrested development have to believe to prop up their fragile and narrow belief systems.
I see you’re not completely unable to recognize a reference to your warm and wonderful personality.
– This is absurd: I was intentionally revealing.
– Semcgowanjr: There’s no consciousness and therefore no perception of time in death, so I’m not concerned about your imaginary theme-parks, one naughty one nice.
– This is absurd, again: Don’t be absurd. And whining about tone has little to do with what was said. Boring talking-points you cannot fix.
Thanks for the display of reading comprehension issues.
Your mom wants you to get some fresh air today.