Michael Farris, HSLDA and Patrick Henry's College's Silencing of Sexual Assualt Victims

HSLDA is an organization that as a young fundamentalist homeschooler, I once admired. I bought Micheal Farris' lines about defending freedom, and fighting for homeschooling rights. Now, Micheal Farris and HSLDA sicken me. When I see his smug, smiling face, I see the face of evil. 

That sound a bit harsh, doesn't it? Well, let me review why I feel this way about him. There's been many recent revelations about him and his organization lately,  including the facts about how they once called a man who forced his children to live in cages "a hero", and how they want to dismantle all legal protections for children, all while campaigning for "parent's rights".

Recently, it also came to light how cult leader Bill Gothard, who is facing some extreme allegations of sexual abuse and sexual harassment of his staff, was Micheal Farris' mentor.

If you thought it couldn't get any worse, there's been new information coming to light about how not only have there been reports of sexual assault and harassment coming out of Patrick Henry College, the college Farris founded, but that staff tried to intimidate victims into silence, but questioned their accounts, and even out rightly blamed them for what was done to them.

Here's more from a report from the magazine New Republic, titled "Sexual Assault at God's Harvard":

Here's what one student had to say:

“Basically, my issue was swept under the rug, and the assaulter received little else but a reprimand,” says a young woman who attended Patrick Henry between 2004 and 2008. The student fell asleep at an off-campus party where there had been drinking and was awoken by a male PHC student assaulting her. She says she reported the incident to Patrick Henry. “The administration encouraged me to not go to the police and said that, because alcohol was involved and I was violating the rules there, they hinted that I could be expelled if I brought light to the incident,” the student says. “The focus was the alcohol. I drank. I sinned. I deserved to be assaulted in the middle of the night.”

One student, after it came to light that she had been cutting herself because of trauma from a sexual assault that had happened before she arrived at PHC was essentially forced out of the college by Sandra Corbitt, Dean of Student Life:

Cult Leader Bill Gothard: New Abuse Allegations, and His Disturbing Connections to HSLDA

Back in November 2012, I wrote a blog post on cult leader Bill Gothard, and his beliefs, which range from the bizarre, like expecting followers to follow old testament food rules to the disturbing, such as his view that most mental illness are the result of "guilt and irresponsibility". It became the most popular post of all time on this blog.

Now, I'm back to talk more about him because of two troubling revelations that have come to light about him recently: new allegations of sexual abuse against him, and new information about his deep connections to the immensely powerful homeschooling group HSLDA (Homeschool Legal Defense Association.

New sexual abuse allegations:

The Christian watchdog group Recovering Grace has been publishing accounts by former followers of his recently of sexual harassment and molestation. The worst account yet has been the story of a woman identified only as "Charlotte". She came to the headquarters of the Institute of Basic Life Principles, Gothard flagship organization when she was 16 to work for his organization.

During that time, Gothard while "counseling" her, blamed her for being molested by her father, saying that she had "tempted him", and then in turn, went on to have inappropriate physical contact with her himself.

She was called into a meeting with Gothard and several of his staff members later, where he denied all of this, and the staff members had told her that they didn't believe her. Several former cult members who were involved in this meeting are no longer a part of the group, have confirmed this detail to Recovering Grace

She was promptly sent away from headquarters, and back to her family, who thought that she had done something wrong to be expelled like this, and rejected her.

Read Charlotte's full account at Recovering Grace

There have also been other people coming forward lately, an avalanche of people contacting Recovering Grace with their accounts of wrongdoing by Gothard, including a woman, "Meg", who was 20 years old when she was a secretary for Bill Gothard, when she was sexually harassed by him, and was told later that he had wanted to marry her. Read her series, Sacred Grooming, starting here, it's a 6 part series in total.

Deep, disturbing connections to HSLDA:

The Homeschool Legal Defense Association is a frightening organization in and of itself (and one that my parents unfortunately belonged to). In May 2013, I talked about the worst of their beliefs and practices, including calling a man who forced his children to live in cages a "hero", wanting state mandatory reporter laws for child abuse (laws that require teachers, ministers, etc to report child abuse that they encounter or face prosecution), to end, and their belief that anonymous tips to child services agencies shouldn't exist.

HSLDA: We Would Rather Stand Behind Abusers Than Their Victims

If you are not familiar with what HSLDA (the Homeschool Legal Defense Association) is, you need to know who they are, and how they stand in the way of child abuse investigations, and condone abuse.

Libby Anne of the Patheos blog Love Joy Feminism recently had a great post series on the disgusting tactics that this group uses, supposedly in order to protect homeschooling families (read all her posts related to them here).

Here is some of the more disturbing ways of how they end up supporting child abusers in the process, in their campaign to supposedly protect the homeschooling rights of member families:

If HSLDA had their way, anonymous tips to social services agencies would become history:

In a report to Congress, HSLDA lawyer Christopher Klicka stated that he wanted federal law to be amended to prohibit anonymous tips to state social services agencies:

Anonymous Tips: As a condition of receiving federal funds, CAPTA should be amended to mandate states to require all reporters of child abuse to give their names, addresses and phone numbers. This will curtail false reporting and end harassment using anonymous tips. CAPTA should be amended by adding subsection 42 U.S.C. 5106a(b)(2)(A)(xiv): provisions and procedures to assure that no reports shall be investigated unless the person making such a report provides such person’s name, address and telephone number and that the information is independently verified.

This would all but end reporting of abuse cases to social services. Think about it, if you knew that a neighbor was beating their children, how likely would you be to report it if not only did you have to state name, address, and your phone number to the social services worker, but that the neighbor's lawyer could insist that this information be provided to them (and therefore their client as well). Wouldn't you likely be afraid for your life in a situation like this?

HSLDA opposes mandatory reporting laws:

HSLDA believes that laws requiring adults to report evidence of abuse to social services, local police or prosecutors will create a 'police state", here's what they had to say about a proposed federal law that would have made state mandatory reporting laws a nationwide norm:

S. 1879 will require every single person to be a mandatory reporter of suspected child abuse. States will lose certain federal funds if they do not create mandatory reporter laws that encompass every single person in the state. This will create a massive “police state” system that forces people to report on family members and neighbors even if they only suspect child abuse, or they will face a mandatory minimum sentence of one year in jail.