CLEVELAND (GA)
The Roys Report [Chicago IL]
June 3, 2025
By Mark A. Kellner
Protests, petitions, and cover-up accusations have roiled Truett McConnell University (TMU) in Cleveland, Georgia, after The Roys Report (TRR) exposed sexual assault allegations against former academic VP Bradley Reynolds.
Reynolds — dismissed in 2024 after the local sheriff’s office began an investigation into the abuse charges — allegedly inappropriately touched and digitally raped Hayle Swinson, a former student and soccer coach.
TMU President Emir Caner, who hired Reynolds in 2009, is among those accused of ignoring the misconduct. Trustees are set to meet Thursday or Friday. Student and alumni protests are slated to coincide with that meeting.
As of June 3, more than 2,000 people have signed a petition posted at change.org by “Concerned Truett Alumni” demanding action. (TMU had 2,612 students — mostly online — enrolled in fall 2023 according to U.S. News & World Report.)
The signers want a review of “all reports of alleged abuse that have occurred on or off campus since 2009 including those involving Reynolds “or any other TMU employee or representative.”
The petitioners demand an investigation into what Caner and TMU vice presidents knew about the allegations involving Swinson and other victims, and the extent to which they “may have enabled, minimized, or failed to act.” They also want a review of all TMU employment terminations since 2009 to determine if any were retaliatory against those “who may have attempted to report abuse or seek accountability.”
On May 30, officials of the Georgia Baptist Convention urged trustees “to take the appropriate actions to fully understand what happened and to ensure this type of behavior will never be repeated.” The church leaders called the allegations “deeply troubling” and said they were “overwhelmed with sorrow.”
TMU held an emergency staff meeting May 30 where a school attorney said he had no prior knowledge of Swinson’s complaints before Reynolds informed officials of a law enforcement investigation in February 2024.
Allegations ignored for years: critics
On May 29, TRR reported that Caner ignored allegations against Reynolds for years, even when a staff member alerted him in 2016 that Reynolds could be sexually abusing coed Hayle Swinson. During what Swinson later called a years-long “grooming” campaign, Reynolds sent her sexually explicit emails and predicted his wife would die, opening the way for him and Swinson to marry.
Swinson finally ended the relationship in 2018 and reported it to law enforcement in 2024. No charges were filed, but the college got wind of the investigation and put Reynolds on leave. Eventually, he resigned.
Meanwhile Jonathan Morris, a former Title IX coordinator at the school who alerted Caner about Reynolds back in 2016, claimed he was forced out of his job.
A follow-up post on TMU’s Facebook page dismissed TRR’s report as the product of “a blogger and a podcaster,” and insisted the school first learned of the allegations from the sheriff’s probe.
But statements from Morris and an email from Reynolds to Swinson in 2016 indicate Caner was made aware of the alleged improprieties involving the two far earlier.
Dated Nov. 1, 2016, Reynolds’ email portrayed Caner as well aware of the Swinson-Reynolds relationship and even offered to fire those predisposed to gossip about the pair.
In a June 3 email to TRR, attorney G. Grant Greenwood, a partner at James Bates Brannan Groover in Macon, Georgia, and an outside counsel to TMU, dismissed Reynolds’ claims.
Greenwood wrote, “I did not find evidence to corroborate Reynolds’ claim that Dr. Caner stated, ‘any more gossip like that, will result in the person saying it being fired.’ Frankly, given that Reynolds has proven by his own actions to be both manipulative and untruthful, I do not find his account to be credible.”
A June 2 video by Caner — provided to TRR — did not directly answer what he knew about Reynolds or when. Filmed on a smartphone, Caner said, “It grieves me to see that one of our own . . . has been hurt in this way. My family and I . . . have personally prayed for her healing . . . While there was no cover up, there was no Title IX (report) filed or an HR complaint; there was no petition that ever came across my desk.”
He added, “I’m so sorry that this has happened. I’m so sorry for Haley. I’m so sorry for her family.”
But the school has not provided financial assistance for counseling for Swinson, according to her attorney Marcia Shein.
Greenwood did not respond to TRR’s questions about the matter, nor has Caner or Brandi Wood, director of marketing and communications, despite repeated requests.
But at the May 30 staff meeting, which was recorded and leaked to TRR, Greenwood said hindsight makes the relationship seem “patently obvious.”
Noting that Swinson had had a relationship with Reynolds’s family and babysat the couple’s children, the attorney listed a variety of innocuous interactions and then asked rhetorically, “What’s the difference? . . . Where’s the dividing line . . . between an innocuous relationship and not?”
Mathematics professor Veronica Respress told the gathering she disagreed that TMU officials were unaware of the appearances Reynolds created.
“I confronted Brad Reynolds,” she said. “That’s why it’s hard for me to believe that the men on this campus . . . didn’t know something.” She said a parent of a prospective student considered another school “because she doesn’t feel safe . . . (having) her 18-year-old daughter here on this campus.”
In the nearly two-hour meeting during which audience members and several speakers could be heard crying, Caner – who witnesses said was present – did not speak.
Maria Kayondo, who earned undergraduate and master’s degrees at the school and is on the executive committee of TMU’s alumni association, challenged Greenwood’s denials.
“It breaks my heart to even sit here in this meeting, because I walked that journey, and I know every single detail, and I know you guys know the truth, and I just beg you to just be honest,” she said. “The Lord requires honesty in every aspect, and it sickens me to sit here and watch you guys just lie and lie and lie.”
Speaking with TRR today, Kayondo said the school’s “general population” knew there was something amiss with Reynolds, even apart from any allegations involving Hayle Swinson.
“I took two of his Bible classes, and he loved talking about dirty sex,” Kayondo recalled. “I remember one time he was just (asking), ‘If you’ve had premarital sex, like, how dirty was it?’ Just asking in front of 70 students.”
Bryan Wisdom, a TMU alumnus and former director of student development and a former admissions director, told TRR, “There is very much a culture of fear and intimidation that exists on the campus.” He expressed hope that the school will reform now that the Reynolds story is public.
At least one parent of a TMU student claims Caner was aware of issues two years before Reynolds was dismissed.
When TMU parent Whitney Smith emailed Caner on Feb. 2, 2022, about “(r)umors of impropriety, (an) unsafe environment, and much worse (that) are the consistent talk on campus . . . at EVERY turn/”
Caner replied within a half hour. “The campus has never been safer than it is now,” he said.