In God’s country

Richard Roberts, the president of Oral Roberts University, resigned on Friday, amidst accusations that he and his wife misspent university funds and jeopardized the university’s tax-exempt status with fundraising efforts for a Republican candidate. Roberts is the son of school founder and well-known evangelist Oral Roberts, and although ORU’s strict dress code and morals have loosened over the years, students are still required to sign an honor code. All this makes Richard Roberts’ conduct – which included splurging for vacations and horses for his children, then firing professors who brought the spending to light – even more astonishing.\nAs Richard Roberts steps down, we’re forced to wonder: How did this happen? The malfeasance reported by the three canned professors stretched from the miniscule (professors helping the Roberts children do their homework) to the enormous (requiring government students to aid a Republican candidate for mayor of Tulsa, Okla.).\nSurely corruption on such a level should have been noticed by administrative officials, but it appears that they looked the other way until after media pressure forced Oral Roberts to step in and show his own son the door. Although Oral Roberts claimed that his son would eventually return to the post of president, Richard Roberts’ departure was demanded from the campus itself. \nWith a no-confidence vote by the faculty and assurances from his hand-picked provost that he would resign should Roberts be reinstated, the members of the ORU community knew it was time for him to go.\nThe scrutiny at ORU comes as many evangelical preachers find themselves under fire from Charles E. Grassley (R-IA), the ranking Republican on the Senate Committee on Finance, including three members of ORU’s board of regents. Grassley is questioning how supposedly non-profit preachers can justify their lavish accommodations, Bentleys and private jets. And at the intersection of faith and higher education at ORU, an attitude of spending and luxury comes at the expense of students, who pay about $30,000 a year to attend the private liberal arts college. \nIn case you think we are out to “get” evangelists, keep in mind that those who gave Richard Roberts the boot are evangelists themselves. The faculty and students of ORU came from evangelical backgrounds and still stand by the morals and values of the university. You wouldn’t teach at or attend Oral Roberts University without liking Oral Roberts.\nSuch a situation only sets the hypocrisy of the profound corruption of Richard Roberts in its proper context. Freshman Ben Conners told the Associated Press: “I’m sure there is corruption everywhere, but if you’re holding students to such a high standard, making them sign an honor code and live by these strict principles, I expect the administration to be living by an even stricter set of principles. To see something like this, it feels empty, like an elaborate masquerade party.”\nWith any luck, now the party is finally over. It’s not fair to hold religious universities to a higher standard than a normal private or public university; corruption is corruption regardless. Nevertheless, religious universities shouldn’t get more benefit of doubt than the rest of us.