A federal judge in Texas dismissed a lawsuit involving a student who accused a former Southern Baptist Convention leader and an SBC-affiliated seminary of mishandling a case of sexual abuse.
On March 25, U.S. District Judge Sean Jordan ruled that Jane Roe, the unnamed plaintiff in the case, did not provide sufficient evidence to show that Fort Worth, Texas-based Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and its former president, Paige Patterson, failed to take action to prevent sexual abuse on campus.
Roe first filed the lawsuit in 2019 after she was allegedly sexually assaulted multiple times by another former seminary student, referred to as John Doe. She claimed that Patterson and the school mistreated her when she accused Doe of stalking and rapping her multiple times and were negligent in their decision to admit Doe despite these claims.
"The Court holds that Roe's injuries at the hands of Doe were not foreseeable to SWBTS, even considering altogether the totality of Doe's past criminal conduct," Jordan said, The Christian Post reports.
According to the lawsuit, Roe claimed that Patterson "seemed to enjoy making Roe even more uncomfortable with his questions" when she met with him and other male leaders at SWBTS to discuss sexual assaults.
Roe argued that "women who tried to report sexual harassment and sexual abuse were ignored, dismissed or disciplined themselves" is "a gross distortion of the evidence before the court," Jordan wrote in the ruling.
"The proposition that SWBTS has a history of condoning sexual assault or sexual harassment of female students has not been proven by Roe and is not supported by the record in this case."
"Roe never directly told Patterson or anyone at SWBTS of her concerns that Doe was stalking her," the judge noted. "Nor did Roe make any sexual harassment, sexual assault, or any other complaint about Doe prior to August 2015. It is further undisputed that the first time Roe told Patterson and SWBTS that she had been raped by Doe was on August 20, 2015 – the date she made her report to the school – months after the sexual assaults allegedly occurred. At that time, Patterson and SWBTS immediately notified local law enforcement authorities of Roe's outcry, and Roe was interviewed by the Fort Worth Police Department. Roe declined to pursue charges against Doe," he added.
In the lawsuit, Roe cited an email sent by Patterson to other seminary staff in which he said he wanted to meet with Roe one-on-one to "break her down" as proof of a broader culture of mistreatment at Southwestern under Patterson's leadership.
While the judge admitted that the email was "powerful evidence supporting her negligence claims," he ruled that it was not enough proof of the existence of a widespread culture. "Patterson's approach to further communications with Roe may well have been misguided and inappropriate, but his post-hoc actions based on an apparent mistrust of the truthfulness of Roe's allegations cannot create a genuine issue of material fact on the key questions of foreseeability and duty at the heart of this case," Jordan wrote.
Patterson and SWBTS are still facing claims of defamation under the suit.
Patterson, who also served as president of the Wake Forest, North Carolina-based Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, was a significant figure in the SBC's Conservative Resurgence in the late 20th century. In 2018, he was fired from Southwestern following the release of reports noting that he mishandled Roe's case in 2015 and another in 2003 at Southeastern.
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Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer and content creator. He is a contributing writer for CrosswalkHeadlines and the host of the For Your Soul Podcast, a podcast devoted to sound doctrine and biblical truth. He holds a Masters of Divinity from Alliance Theological Seminary.
