After a woman stabbed a man on campus early this year, claiming he threatened her life, Cedarville University has been grappling with concern on campus about broader issues of sexual harassment and violence.
In February, a female student at Cedarville — a Baptist school in Ohio — was arrested after she stabbed a male student. According to local news reports, she met the student on campus to apologize to him, because she intended to report incidents to the university that involved him.
She was sitting on his lap and, according to news reports, she told authorities he put his hands on her neck as if to choke her, and he threatened to kill her. The male student said his arms were around her shoulders to relieve her anxiety, not to threaten her.
Local news reports said the woman then reached into her pocket for a knife, stood up, turned around and stabbed the man in the chest. After a call was placed to 911, the man was taken to the hospital and later released. Police arrested the woman, and she faces charges of felonious assault and tampering with evidence.
As the case makes its way through the criminal justice system, some students on campus describe a reaction from the administration that is a throwback to a time of blaming women for sexual harassment and shutting down discussion about the topic.
The week after the stabbing, Cedarville President Thomas White returned to campus from a trip to Fiji and spoke at the weekly chapel service. In a video of the remarks posted online, he said concern that the campus Title IX office doesn’t care about victims is nonsensical, and he defended the staff as trained professionals. He further said when humans don’t have full information about a situation, the “typical sinful inclination” is to assume the worst. But the Title IX office rules, based on federal guidelines, prevent releasing information publicly.
He assured the student body that “things are often more complicated than what they may initially seem to us.”
White then went on to encourage students to join him in a prayer and worship revival that evening, because he would like an Asbury University type of revival at Cedarville.
White’s unusual address had the effect of scuttling a walk-out some students had planned to protest the university’s handling of sexual harassment concerns, according to a student who asked to remain anonymous. The student said protesters do not want to hurt the university, but to prompt the administration to improve the campus environment for women.
Then in April, the university’s Title IX office rolled out a campaign to encourage students to report sexual harassment or violence, but the campaign included a sign that suggested women bear some responsibility for abuse. A sticker on the mirror in a women’s bathroom said: “Examine Yourself: Have I ever encouraged my boyfriend to go beyond boundaries we set for our relationship?”
“That mirror sticker was immediately taken down across campus because the language used on that specific sticker did not communicate the message we intended.”
Cedarville spokesman Mark Weinstein said in an email the “Examine Yourself” signs were removed within a day in response to a complaint. “That mirror sticker was immediately taken down across campus because the language used on that specific sticker did not communicate the message we intended,” he said. The university continued with other aspects of the campaign, which includes messaging about consent, power differentials and healing from sexual violence.
This is not Cedarville’s first time in the news for similar controversies. In 2013, a student filed a federal Title IX complaint against the university, alleging mishandling of her report of an attempted rape. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation.
Paige Patterson, while serving as president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, served as chair of the Cedarville University board of trustees. It is highly unusual for the president of one educational institution to serve on the board of another educational institution.
Patterson reportedly was a mentor to President White. When in 2018 Patterson was fired from Southwestern, in part amid allegations of mishandling sexual abuse cases, he was forced to resign from the Cedarville trustee board after a petition was started demanding his removal.
Two years later, in May 2020, Cedarville’s board of trustees placed President White on administrative leave, pending an investigation into White’s hiring and later firing of Anthony Moore, a known sexual abuser. The board reinstated White one month later, prompting the resignations of two board members, Mark Vroegop and Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary — the Southern Baptist seminary where Patterson was president before moving to Southwestern.
