Canadian evangelical scholar and commentator John G. Stackhouse has lost his job as a religious studies professor following a six-month investigation into accusations of inappropriate behavior toward students, spurred by an online campaign.
Students said Stackhouse made unacceptable sexist remarks and jokes in class, according to an independent investigator. order by Crandall University, the Baptist college in New Brunswick where Stackhouse had taught since 2015. The investigator also said the professor’s email exchanges with a student constituted sexual harassment.
In a statement, Stackhouse’s legal counsel to CT said he “categorically disagreed” with the report’s findings and took issue with the university’s decision to post them online, “turning a private matter into a spectacle audience “.
The summary of results, published last Wednesday, also noted unanswered questions about sexual harassment complaints against Stackhouse before he worked at Crandall. Regent College in Vancouver, where Stackhouse taught for 17 years, decreases comment, citing privacy law; a CBC news show reported On Sunday, Regent and Stackhouse agreed to a settlement following a 2014 investigation.
When asked about allegations at other institutions, Stackhouse told the investigator, “I don’t see how it is in my interest to answer this question,” the report said. Stackhouse said there were no open complaints at the time he left Regent, but the investigator concluded that, directly or by omission, he misled Crandall before his hiring about the circumstances of his departure .
Stackhouse has been a voice calling for responsibility to evangelical institutions and the inclusion of women in leadership, and he was an early critic of the late Ravi Zacharias. He writes books on ethics, apologetics, evangelicalism and gender roles, including Feminist at Last: A Pragmatic Christian Understanding of Gender And Partners in Christ: A Conservative Argument for Egalitarianism.
Since last spring, an Instagram account called DoBetterCrandall began anonymously sharing stories of jokes, behavior and inappropriate treatment from an anonymous Crandall professor. More than 100 students signed an open letter calling on the university to take action.
Crandall launched an investigation in April and announced Stackhouse dismissal last Wednesday. The university management published a letter expressing “its deepest regrets to all its students, and in particular to any student or students who felt threatened, diminished or victimized”.
“The safety and security of its students is paramount at Crandall University,” said former board chair Sheila Cummings, who oversaw the investigation, current president Douglas Schofield and president of the Bruce Fawcett University. “We cannot and will not tolerate behavior by administration, faculty or staff that in any way violates the mission and identity of the University.”
While Stackhouse became the “key subject” of the investigation, the summary of findings mentioned other professors as well as recommendations to strengthen university policies.
Stackhouse’s attorney, Denis Grigoras, released a statement to CT on Monday.
“While Dr. Stackhouse recognizes and respects the importance of addressing any allegations of misconduct in a thorough and fair manner, including through a workplace investigation consistent with best practices, the manner in which Crandall has chosen to handle “This matter concerns him deeply,” the statement read.
Crandall had published a six-page summary of findings of the investigation led by Joël Michaud of the Pink Larkin law firm. In the report, Stackhouse is referred to as “the faculty member,” although he is identified by name in a document. university press release. Students and former students described how the 63-year-old professor made “sexist comments, sexist remarks, comments about a person’s appearance, dress and appearance.”
According to the report, Stackhouse said Crandall’s president spoke to him about his in-class remarks following complaints from a few students before the program launched. DoBetterCrandall Instagram account.
Michaud wrote that “jokes (or stories) that might have seemed charming 25 years ago are no longer acceptable.” Instead, the investigator considered it sexual harassment and said Stackhouse’s behavior “bordered on abuse of authority” as defined in university policy. policy. He also said he believed Stackhouse’s “antics had had a detrimental effect on the learning environment.”
Stackhouse also had a reputation for being brash and abrasive, students said. While not uncommon in academia, the investigator said, “the line is crossed when the behavior rises to the level of harassment or abuse of authority.” Michaud believed Stackhouse “deserved severe disciplinary action.”
The investigator also reviewed approximately 100 pages of emails sent to a student that he said constituted sexual harassment. The student did not engage in email banter or “otherwise encourage” inappropriate messages, Michaud wrote.
During the investigation, according to the report, Stackhouse acknowledged that his email exchanges with the student were “inappropriate, unhealthy and unbecoming of a professor.” Stackhouse said he “wouldn’t defend him”, but maintained that the jokes were “kind of an aberration from a long career”.
Stackhouse’s lawyer called the findings a “private investigative report” and plans to “explore legal avenues” in response to their publication because “these matters have caused significant harm to the reputation and career of the Dr. Stackhouse.”
“This approach is unnecessary and harmful,” he said, “impacting not only Dr. Stackhouse, but also the very fabric of privacy and due process within private academic institutions.”
On Threads, Baylor University historian Beth Allison Barr commented that she was grateful “that @crandalluniversity did the right thing in public. It’s time for us to stop allowing churches and Christian institutions to sweep this behavior under the rug.”
Cummings, the former chair of the university’s board of trustees, cited Micah 6:8 in a segment broadcast on CBC and said the outlet, “I think it’s important that we are open and honest about everything we do. Would it have been easier to try to just sweep this under the rug? Maybe, but it wasn’t what was fair and honest.
Stackhouse regularly comments on evangelical issues in media outlets like CBC and Christianity today. Years before Zacharias’ death and news of the apologist’s abuse, Stackhouse was a leading voice calling out Zacharias’ inflated credentials. He also discussed his concerns regarding transparency and ethics within the ministry, including finance.
And Stackhouse has focused on the role of women in the Church and gotten involved with organizations such as Christians for Biblical Equality. As an apologist, he recognized how the Church’s missteps on gender and abuse harm those within it and its mission, lamenting in a 2022 blog post that “many women and girls are victims of unwanted flirting, condescension, sexual harassment, and sexual assault – even in our Christian homes and churches, as too many studies now prove.”
Days before Crandall announced the investigation’s findings, Stackhouse shared photos on social media from the American Academy of Religion/Society of Biblical Literature annual meetings in San Antonio.
A week before his dismissal, he published an article on his blog announcing a series on salvation. Before that, he wrote about Psalm 23: “Far from the pastoral sentimentality of too many Sunday school lessons and well-intentioned funeral sermons, it depicts the life of faith as the Bible actually describes it: full of peril, dark with menace and terrifying to anyone who does it. do not walk alongside the Good Shepherd.
