Crandall University Fires Professor of Religious Studies for Sexual Misconduct
Author who advocated for women’s leadership loses job over inappropriate behavior toward women.
Evangelical theologian John G. Stackhouse, Jr. has been terminated from his job at Crandall University after a six-month investigation into alleged inappropriate behavior toward female students on campus.
Allegations arose at the small Baptist college in New Brunswick, Canada, after an anonymous Instagram account called DoBetterCrandall began sharing stories about sexual misconduct from unnamed professors. Shortly after, students and alumni signed an open letter to the university asking it to respond to these allegations.
In April 2023, Crandall hired the law firm Pink Larkin to conduct an independent investigation into the accusations. Led by Joël Michaud, K.C., the Pink Larkin report focuses largely on a single faculty member, later revealed to be Stackhouse in a press release from Crandall.
According to the report, Michaud conducted numerous interviews with students, faculty, staff and alumni between May and November focusing on “concerns or allegations at Crandall that included sexual assault, inappropriate behavior by a specific professor, and other related issues.” Many of those interviewed were students who had shared their experiences on the “DoBetterCrandall” Instagram account.
Overall, Michaud found the professor under investigation created an “unwelcoming environment” for students, and that in his view the “jokes (or stories) that might have come across as charming 25 years ago are no longer acceptable… they constitute sexual harassment… the faculty member’s conduct with some of his students in the classroom was unwelcome, it was of a sexual nature (which includes gender-based comments, sexist remarks, comments about a person’s looks, dress and appearance). The conduct was found to be persistent.”
The investigator also looked into a series of email exchanges between Stackhouse and a female student that he said amounted to “a classic case of grooming.”
Pink Larkin presented its findings to Crandall’s board of governors in mid-November recommending “severe disciplinary action” for the professor. The board approved Stackhouse’s termination on Nov. 22.
“The investigation and the subsequent employment action conclude this incident, but clearly all of us at Crandall must work very hard to ensure that we maintain this very special University community at the highest standards,” said former board Chair Sheila Cummings, who oversaw the investigation, along with current chair Douglas Schofield and university president Bruce Fawcett. “As the report to the Board recommends, our next step will be to focus on strengthening our harassment policies with input from our students and other members of our University community.”
Stackhouse is known for advocating to include women in church leadership, writing books about gender roles, amongst other things, including Finally Feminist: A Pragmatic Christian Understanding of Gender. He was also an early critic of the late evangelist Ravi Zacharias.
Stackhouse’s legal counsel issued a statement to Christianity Today saying that he “categorically” disagrees with the report.
The report summary also raised questions around sexual harassment complaints leveraged against Stackhouse when he worked at Regent College in Vancouver from 1998-2015.
Main photo: John G. Stackhouse Jr. / Wikimedia Commons
