In October of 2020, multiple students from Moody Bible Institute compiled their stories of sexual assault in a Google document, eventually crating a petition for their school to address its failings. Moody Bible Institute has a history of Title IX infractions for example, the school has kept women from participating in pastoral programs up until 2017, and they have also faced claims of discriminatory employee termination. Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education during the Trump administration, expanded and broadened these religious exemptions so that any school could claim religious exemption, even if a complaint made it all the way to the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Education they can retroactively make the religious exemption claim. Title IX has religious exemptions which allows schools to still follow the broad tenets of Title IX while being able to skirt issues that conflict with their religious beliefs. that accepts federal funding must follow Title IX guidelines, which address discrimination on the basis of gender in educational institutions.

To better understand what is happening at Christian colleges like Moody Bible Institute, it’s important to first understand Title IX. Becca Andrews, reporter with Mother Jones Magazine, talks to us about purity culture and sexual assault at Christian colleges, with an in-depth look at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago.

Purity culture stems from the idea that men are inherently sexual beings and that women are not, placing the burden on women to be the gatekeepers of sexuality in evangelical communities, as well as to “control” the desires of men.

Purity culture, or the expectation that women remain sexually “pure,” is widespread throughout evangelical communities.

The purity myth book