Canadian evangelical scholar and commentator John G. Stackhouse lost his job as a religious studies professor following a six-month investigation into allegations of inappropriate behavior toward students, fueled by an online campaign.
Students said Stackhouse made sexist comments and unacceptable jokes in the classroom, according to an independent investigator. official by Crandall University, the Baptist university in New Brunswick where Stackhouse had taught since 2015. The investigator also said the professor’s email exchanges with a female student amounted to sexual harassment.
A statement from Stackhouse’s legal counsel to CT said he “categorically disagrees” with the report’s conclusions and questions the university’s decision to post them online, “turning a private matter into a public spectacle.”
the summary of recommendations, published last Wednesday, also pointed out unanswered questions about sexual harassment allegations against Stackhouse before he worked at Crandall. Regent College in Vancouver, where Stackhouse was a professor for 17 years, refused make comments, citing privacy law; a CBC news program reported On Sunday, Regent and Stackhouse agreed to a settlement following a 2014 investigation.
When asked about allegations at other institutions, Stackhouse told the investigator, “I don’t see why I’m interested in answering that question,” the report said. Stackhouse said there were no open complaints at the time he left Regent, but the investigator concluded that he, either directly or by omission, misled Crandall before hiring him about the circumstances of his departure.
Stackhouse has been a voice calling for responsibility in evangelical institutions and the inclusion of women in leadership, and was among the early critics of the late Ravi Zacharias. She wrote books on ethics, apologetics, evangelicalism, and gender roles, including Finally Feminist: A Pragmatic Christian Understanding of Gender and Partners in Christ: A Conservative Argument for Egalitarianism.
Starting last spring, an Instagram account called dobettercrandall began anonymously sharing stories of inappropriate jokes, behavior, and treatment by an anonymous Crandall professor. More than 100 students signed an open letter asking the university to respond.
Crandall launched an investigation in April and announced Stackhouse’s dismissal last Wednesday. The university management issued a letter expressing “the deepest regret to all its students, and in particular to any student or students who have felt threatened, diminished or victimized.”
“The most important thing at Crandall University is the safety of its students,” said former Board President Sheila Cummings, who oversaw the investigation, current President Douglas Schofield and University President Bruce Fawcett. “We cannot and will not tolerate behavior from your administration, faculty or staff that in any way violates the mission and identity of the University.”
While Stackhouse became the “key subject” of the investigation, the summary of the findings mentioned other professors as well as Recommendations to strengthen university policies.
Stackhouse’s attorney, Denis Grigoras, issued a statement to CT on Monday.
“While Dr. Stackhouse recognizes and respects the importance of addressing any allegations of misconduct thoroughly and fairly, including through a workplace investigation that complies with best practices, the manner in which Crandall has chosen to handle this matter worries him deeply.” the statement said.
Crandall had launched a six-page summary of findings of the investigation, led by Joël Michaud, of the law firm Pink Larkin. In the report, Stackhouse is referred to as “the faculty member,” although he is identified by his first name in a university press release. Students and former students told how the 63-year-old professor would make “gender-based comments, sexist comments, comments about a person’s appearance, clothing and appearance.”
According to the report, Stackhouse said Crandall’s president spoke with him about his comments in class following complaints from some students before the program launched. dobettercrandall Instagram account.
Michaud wrote that “jokes (or stories) that might have seemed charming 25 years ago are no longer acceptable”; instead, the investigator considered them sexual harassment and said Stackhouse’s behavior “bordered on abuse of authority” as defined in the university’s report. policy. He also said that he believed Stackhouse’s “antics negatively affected the learning environment.”
Stackhouse also had a reputation for being brash and abrasive, students said. While this is not uncommon in academia, the researcher said, “the line is crossed when the behavior reaches the level of harassment or abuse of authority.” Michaud believed that Stackhouse “deserves severe disciplinary action.”
The investigator also reviewed about 100 pages of emails with a student that he believed constituted sexual harassment. The student did not participate in the email pranks or “encourage” the inappropriate messages, Michaud wrote.
During the investigation, according to the report, Stackhouse acknowledged that his email exchanges with the student were “inappropriate, unhealthy and unbecoming of a professor.” Stackhouse said he “wouldn’t defend it” but argued that the jokes were “something of an aberration in a long career.”
Stackhouse’s attorney has referred to the findings as a “private investigative report” and plans to “explore legal avenues” in response to their publication, as “these matters have caused significant damage to Dr. Stackhouse.”
“This approach is unnecessary and harmful,” their statement read, “affecting not only Dr. Stackhouse but also the very fabric of privacy and due process within private academic institutions.”
On Threads, Baylor University Historian Beth Allison Barr commented that she was grateful “that @crandalluniversidad did the right thing in public. “It is time we stop allowing churches and Christian institutions to sweep this behavior under the rug.”
Cummings, former president of the university’s board of trustees, cited Micah 6:8 in a segment with CBC and said the medium, “I think it is important that we are open and honest in everything we do. Would it have been easier to just try to sweep this under the rug? Maybe, but it wasn’t the right and honest thing to do.”
Stackhouse regularly comments on evangelical issues on outlets such as CBC and Christianity today. Years before Zacharias’ death and news of the apologist’s abuse, Stackhouse was a leading voice denouncing Zacharias’s inflated credentials. He has also spoken of concerns around transparency and ethics in the ministry, including finances.
And Stackhouse has addressed the role of women in the church and has been involved with organizations such as Christians for Biblical Equality. As an apologist, she recognized how the church’s mistakes on gender and abuse harm those within it and its mission, lamenting in a blog post from 2022 that “many women and girls experience unwanted flirting, condescension, sexual harassment, and sexual assault, even in our Christian homes and churches, as too many studies now show.”
Days before Crandall announced the research findings, Stackhouse shared photos on social media of the American Academy of Religion/Society of Biblical Literature annual meetings in San Antonio.
A week before his dismissal, published an entry on his blog announcing a series on salvation. Before that, the wrote on Psalm 23: “Far from the pastoral sentimentality of too many Sunday school lessons and well-intentioned funeral sermons, it describes the life of faith just as the Bible describes it: full of danger, dark with threats, and terrifying to all who do it. Not walking alongside the Good Shepherd.”
