SOUTH CAROLINA
Inside Higher Ed
By Jeremy Bauer-Wolf
May 16, 2018
The accusations against Columbia International University President Mark Smith were shocking enough — a former university general counsel alleging that Smith covered up rampant sexual harassment and bigotry by his son when they were both employed by another religious college.
With the allegations against Smith and his son, Doug Smith, still reverberating at the university, alumni have gone public with other stories about a longstanding climate of sexual harassment and assault. How the former Columbia International president Bill Jones would stroke the hair of students and tickle them without permission. How professors there would do everything from kiss students’ foreheads to pass on rumors they had dated “too many men.”
One faculty member sexually assaulted a student, a graduate alleges.
While the university maintains administrators were ignorant of these allegations, and indeed the graduates said they did not report them at the time, they reinforce an image of religious institutions that many have tried to shake: that sexual misconduct at best goes ignored, and worst, is knowingly dismissed.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.