Institutional Betrayal: Natalie’s Story

It’s been four years since abuse by my seminary professor ended. As horrifically damaging as his abuse was, the seminary’s response to it has caused me even greater harm. This additional trauma not only minimized my professor’s mistreatment of me, but it also destroyed my reputation and relationships within my faith community.

Right after my abuse ended, I had a general understanding that my professor had abused his position of spiritual power and authority. However, I had not yet fully grasped the extent of his coercive control. I knew that when he had sexually harassed and crossed boundaries with me, it was wrong. It had been his responsibility to care for me as a student, but he had instead used me for his own purposes, destroying me in the process. I knew that others needed to be protected from him.

As a result, I was deeply concerned when I learned that the seminary had decided to let my professor resign. Very quickly, and before ever talking to me, the president sent a letter to the faculty that only stated that the professor had acknowledged “sexual conduct inconsistent with the employment standards” of the Seminary.” My alarm grew even more when they sent an email to students saying that my professor had acknowledged “conduct inconsistent with the employment standards” of the Seminary. Meanwhile, the professor himself only acknowledged that he’d had “an affair.”

No one was calling his behaviour by the right names: Spiritual, psychological, emotional, and sexual abuse.

My heart raced and my mind whirled with panic and confusion. What about other students who might have been abused as well? Was the seminary not going to make any effort to explain that this “inconsistent conduct” was actually the sexual abuse of a student?

To add to my concern, there was nothing in the seminary’s response to warn others about the dangers this professor posed. By not addressing the abuse, the seminary was ensuring that this professor could easily move on to another other faith community and do the same damage to someone else.

My husband and I asked a lawyer we knew to write a letter expressing our concerns, and then requesting to meet with the seminary’s board of trustees. We, along with an elder from our church, met with two board members. I shared the details of my abuse, which was an excruciating and shameful experience. They acknowledged his abuse of me and asked that we give them time to discuss it with the entire board.

Days, weeks and then months went by. Finally, we contacted the board member to ask what they had decided to do. Although they gave us a long list of internal changes they wanted to implement, there was nothing about any kind of public statement regarding the professor’s abuse, nor was there any effort to identify other students who might also have been harmed.

I was both disheartened and appalled by the lack of appropriate action which would have allowed for the protection of others. In addition, their poor response hurt me on a personal level. Because they refused to name the professor’s behaviour as abuse, others assumed that it had been a “consensual affair.” Even though people professed “forgiveness” for “what I had done,” I was left with the proverbial scarlet letter on my chest.

I knew that if I spoke up about his abuse, people would say that I was “making excuses for my sin.” Me, along with the entire faith community connected to the seminary needed leadership to step up and be transparent about the abuse that had occurred, but instead they tried to bury what had happened. The school had benefited from riding on the coattails of this professor’s success, but now they wanted to distance themselves as far as possible from his tarnished reputation

At that point in time, only six months out of the abuse, I did not have the bandwidth to continue to push back on the seminar. Instead, I focused on my family and my own healing.

Fast forward two years:

As if following some unwritten script, the professor who had almost destroyed me was back operating in a number of different positions of spiritual authority: A conference proudly announced he’d be speaking, and there was his face, smiling broadly among many other presenters; A friend contacted me, panicked because his sister attended a college group only to find the professor teaching, and surrounded by a group of admiring young women; A training institute for college students issued a brochure, and lo and behold, my former professor was listed as faculty.

By this point, I was ready to speak up. I wrote a lengthy statement detailing the professor’s abuse and also spoke about it on a podcast. Although I now know that going public about my abuse had a direct impact protecting others from him, it also caused me more personal harm.

As expected, others maligned me, whispering about me behind my back, and slandering me on social media. If the seminary had publicly spoken about the professor’s abuse from the start, this false narrative would never have taken root. Other victims would have been given the resources they needed to heal. Future victims would have been protected. It was their responsibility to do it, and their failure was costly for many.

A couple of weeks after my public statement, the new seminary president contacted me. He asked to meet with me, which I did, along with an attorney, my husband, and another elder from our church. He apologized to me on behalf of the seminary, which meant a lot. He also promised to investigate what happened, and to work towards issuing a public statement naming the abuse. I told him that the seminary should hire an independent investigative firm to find out what had gone wrong. I was hopeful.

Once again, days, then weeks and months went by. The new president’s enthusiasm slowly waned, and the length of time between emails got longer and longer. Finally, he sent me a draft of the statement the seminary wanted to make. Although it named the abuse, it did not acknowledge the seminary’s mishandling of the abuse. Instead, the statement made it sound like the seminary cared about abuse and had protected students. In follow up emails with the new president, I learned that he still misunderstood the facts of what had initially been communicated to the students. It was living proof of why internal investigations do not work.

 In the end, I could not stand with them in their statement, and so it was never issued.

I was once again disheartened, but at that point, no longer surprised. I’ve since learned that the seminary’s response – or lack of response – is common. In too many instances of abuse, Christian institutions are more concerned with protecting their reputations than they are with protecting those entrusted to their care. As a person of faith, I believe that these priorities are opposed to those of Christ. Even though my primary hope in sharing my story is to encourage other survivors, I also hope that leaders in the Church will begin to change how they respond to these kinds of situations.