What happened? Fuller states:
Our team connected on Thursday evening and collectively agreed to end our efforts to try and intervene at Bob Jones University. Tough decision, but the right one. While we continue to believe that BJU is on a flight pattern towards closure unless there is major reform with the Chancellor, Board of Trustees, and President of BJU, we also think that reporting violations to the SACSCOC could potentially cause more harm than help to people we love and respect. We love BJU. We are sad about its current condition. We are sad about all the capable faculty/staff who are leaving. We are sad for the students. We are sad about the present BOT's and administration's lack of truthfulness, humility, and respect for the alumni. We pray for BJU. Things didn't have to be this way. Thanks for all the encouragement many of you gave us by trusting us and joining our cause. We will permanently close the Facebook Page and the Instagram Page on Friday night.
Bob Bierman has a theory:
There are no grounds for a lawsuit though, Bob. It's far from an "existential threat."
BJU was under a bigger "existential threat" when they gave Ellen Weaver a bogus Master's degree. Lots of us made a complaint to SACSCOC during that snafu. I can show you my correspondence with SACS.
And complaining to SACSCOC is a normal thing. It's far from a threat at all. That's what SACS handles all the time.
Jonathan Baker here is exactly right:
The SACSCOC complaint process alerts the institution that SACS is paying attention. It reminds the institution to follow their own established rules. It's not a threat to tell SACS. It's what BJU signed up for. It would be like marching into the grocery store and demanding that the cashier give you these apples right now after you pay for them. Okay. . . . That's not a threat. That's how it works.
Fuller's Positives 2.0 got spooked. Silly boys.
UPDATE:
At 11:38am EDT, Friday, April 25, 2025, Brian Fuller added this explanation:
Here's a bit more explanation about our decision to close the group. Those of you who were with us from the beginning may remember two things: we've been praying (and asking you to pray) that the Lord "would make a way where there seemed to be no way." We knew that we were swinging for the fences on our New Contract. We also posted a BJU-NewContract "strategy" (you can scroll down to see the original post), where we laid out three possible paths: 1. Endeavor to facilitate the uniting of the BJU Faculty/Staff to use their collective strength and voice to advocate for change in the Chancellor's ongoing control, the BOT's incompetence, and the administration's mismanagement. 2. Encouraging and facilitating BJU alumni-led, parent-led, and student-led solidarity in speaking up about the removal of beloved faculty and programs that originally attracted many of the students and parents to send their students to BJU. 3. Hoping that perhaps some of the moderate board members who are not part of the powerful super-board (EC) would stand up to the tightly controlled EC and Chancellor, so that there could be transparency, accountability, and ultimately, reform. Unfortunately, we did not see any of those three paths clearly open up. Now, we were able to speak with, encourage, and give a voice to a good number of Faculty/Staff, students, parents, and alumni. However, we have never heard or seen any movement on the BOT. So, as we announced on our page yesterday, we believed the only path forward to leverage change was reporting complaints of violations to the SACSCOC. All along, we've viewed that approach as a kind of "nuclear option." And, on the eve of releasing those violations (last night) publicly, we weighed the potential cost of moving forward with the only legitimate path we saw. We concluded that the cost and the potential negative outcomes outweighed the potential positive outcomes. So, to be clear, there was no outside pressure, coercion, or duress that pushed us to this decision. Just our own consciences before the Lord. We believe that a public filing like we were proposing could actually create solidarity in a Board of Trustees that has already dug their heels in. We also saw the potential harm this action could have on students and faculty. We understand that there is disagreement about our decision. Ultimately, all of us have to approach this with a joyful conscience before the Lord. (Romans 14:12) Our team of alumni and parents ultimately couldn't go through with the "nuclear option" in good conscience. And, seeing no legitimate path forward, we agreed to fold up the tent of BJU-NewContract rather than continuing to report deeply concerning news with no righteous, legitimate call to action we could announce to our group. Stirring all of you up with the continued stream of negative BJU news without being able to point you to any actionable strategy is a fool's errand, in our view. Some of us have chosen to file our own complaints of violations to SACSCOC individually. Some of us are going to continue to try to leverage influence for change privately. We encourage you to continue to pray and use whatever open doors the Lord provides for you to potentially intervene. We hope this gives a bit more background explanation for our decision. We realize our decision to end this movement is an opportunity for some to celebrate, others to be disappointed, and still others to rage against us. That's ok, and frankly, understandable. It was a risk we knowingly took.
