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Endowment

What is the university's endowment size? —Eustress 01:11, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

There is, for practical purposes, none.--John Foxe (talk) 19:17, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

WP:RS? —Eustress 19:55, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Also none.--John Foxe (talk) 21:18, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

People section

This article has experienced significant vandalism problems in the past when "notable graduates" have been mentioned on the article page. The separate "list" has seen much less vandalism, probably >5% of what used to occur on the main page. The guidelines say that sections may be "customized...depending on need and type of institution." Here there is a need for abbreviation. While there are quite a few BJU alumni who have their own WP bios, few to none meet the qualifications given in the rubric: "alumni who have won major scholarships (Rhodes, Fulbright, etc.), major awards (Nobel, Oscar, Pulitzer, etc.), served as heads of government or other major political office, or otherwise held elite or notable distinctions (astronauts, professional athletes, CEOs, etc.)."--John Foxe (talk) 19:17, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I've expanded the alumni section -- looks like plenty of notable people to me. Will get to faculty soon. You shouldn't prevent expansion out of concern for vandalism. This page has only been semi-protected once, and that was in 2010. —Eustress 19:54, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Since I have vivid memories of the vandalism, I disagree.--John Foxe (talk) 20:27, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

If Jamie Langston Turner is a notable person -- nice though she may be, she is not widely known outside of BJU circles -- than the Rector of one of the largest Episcopal Churches in the nation (David R. Anderson) and the CIO of a Fortune 1000 company are notable people. Moreover, if it is notable to mention an "update" to university facilities including "Papa John's, Chik fil A and Brody's Grill," then the mention of an incident that made national headlines in 1998 when Bob Jones University banned a prominent alumnus and retired pastor from campus (Dr. Wayne Mourtizen), threatened him with arrest, and then subsequently backtracked when the University's Museum & Gallery's tax exempt status became an issue -- especially since the ban letters subsequently received by all former students specifically mention the M&G being excluded from a campus ban -- is a notable piece of information for an encyclopedia entry. I have cited credible sources. Disappearing information that Bob Jones University administration feels uncomfortable about is not the purpose of Misplaced Pages editing. Brodacious (talk) 00:14, 5 March 2014 (UTC) Brodacious

Amero-centric

The article, especialyl its introduction, is written with the assumption that the reader is in the USA - "all fifty states" isn't qualified as referring to the US, the 'Department of Education' isn't qualified as being the US DoE, etc. Though it's not particularily difficult to unearth the location of these places, isn't it standard policy to remove regional bias? I forget them name of it. I know spelling differences are left in the style of whoever first wrote the article, and that there's going to be a natural bias towards writing articles for the Young White American, but the article still seems very Amero-centric (if that's the word), and besides being simply off-putting makes it that much harder to read. --Dd 8630 (talk) 17:14, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Fundamental vs. Fundamentalist

There's been some recent reverting back and forth over this . I'm not aware of the exact distinctions between the two terms, but in my limited experience "fundamentalist" is the more common term. Either way, it should probably be discussed here before making the change again. (As a side note, I can't think of a Misplaced Pages policy saying that we need to stay as closely as possible to the original language when paraphrasing, or that we can't use synonyms to keep the language more in line with the rest of the article.) ~Adjwilley (talk) 16:51, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi. I did revert it once, basically for the reason you stated: I'm simply unfamiliar with "fundamental" as opposed to "fundamentalist". I'm StillStanding (24/7) (talk) 16:53, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

• Eating fiber is fundamental for a good diet. Believing God's word literally, for example, and building a church and a school on that basis is fundamentalist. You had it right in your revert: they are very different words and "fundamentalist" is the proper term. There are no "fundamental churches". (Look it up in the dictionary.) Drmies (talk) 16:54, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Until 1996, there was a denomination called Independent Fundamental Churches of America (now IFCA International), and many fundamentalist Baptists (and their bitter opponents) often call their churches "Independent Fundamental Baptist" (IFB).--John Foxe (talk) 19:40, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you.

• A church can call itself what it wants to, but that has nothing to do with whether it should be called fundamentalist or not. Drmies (talk) 00:42, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

The issue is not for us to try to explain the difference between a "fundamentalist church" or a "fundamental church." There may or may not be a difference or a nuance, but the issue is that there is indeed a Misplaced Pages policy about quotation (please see Misplaced Pages:QUOTE) and Misplaced Pages does view paraphrasing like a quote when it is sourced inline. The specific guideline is, "If not used verbatim, any alterations must be clearly marked." Additionally, "fundamental Baptist church" receives 388,000 results on Google (a majority of BJU constituents appear to be Baptist or Baptistic), whereas "fundamentalist Baptist church" gets only 14,500 results. Obviously there is a difference out there, so that would be reason enough. But again, the issue is not a Google search but that Misplaced Pages editors must abide by the objective guideline, not one's stylistic opinion. If you don't like the grammar of it then put the two instances in quotation marks to avoid criticism of seemingly bad grammar. But please revert. If someone insists on misquoting the source, at least he would need to use brackets in both instances of the quote (i.e., "" instead of "fundamentalist") to "clearly mark" the alteration. But that would be unnecessarily awkward.--Llama36 (talk) 21:25, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

• If editors can't tell the difference between one and the other, then someone should explain it. If it concerns a quote, then obviously the source should be followed, but it should also be clear that it's a source that's being quoted or paraphrased. Honestly, I'm baffled at this entire conversation. Fundamentalist means something very specifically and it's not a term to be thrown around lightly, but it has little to do with the word fundamental. Drmies (talk) 00:42, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

I think I can fix that simply.--John Foxe (talk) 21:34, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Excellent solution that also cuts down on redundancy. Thanks.--Llama36 (talk) 21:41, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Curiously, the reference to church planting in Turner's book uses the term "Fundamentalist churches."--John Foxe (talk) 21:45, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I regret to have missed that and to have referred to "two instances" of misquote. Therefore the second quote could be reverted but not the first. I still think it is improved as is now, but to be fair I have removed the "solved" bar. --Llama36 (talk) 22:26, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

No problem. I think it reads better now too.--John Foxe (talk) 23:11, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

What Misplaced Pages Is Not ... Any Input Here?

Looking over this article, I wonder whether or not it meets the criteria of WP:What_Wikipedia_is_not. For example, "When you wonder what should or should not be in an article, ask yourself what a reader would expect to find under the same heading in an encyclopedia." For example, some of the controversies and rules of conduct seem strange for an encyclopedia. Many other schools have guidelines and rules and controversies. Some of them might be necessary, but to me much of the stuff in here doesn't seem consistent with notability; Why would an editor choose some rules to highlight and not others? Who decides what is notable? Why are those specific ones chosen? Anyone have any thoughts on this?--Llama36 (talk) 17:28, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Frankly, most people only know of Bob Jones University because of its former policies on interracial dating. Before I read this article the three things I knew about BJU is: 1. it didn't allow interracial dating until very recently, 2. it was unaccredited (apparently a choice of the three Bob Joneses that Stephen Jones has reversed) and 3. it promotes creationism (of course most evangelical colleges have a very strong anti-science bent, but Liberty and BJU are the only ones I remember hearing named specifically). Reading this article I had the opposite reaction (see the section below), in that it came across as apologizing for the unaccredited policy with wording that I suspect of giving undue weight to claims in one book that the policy was irrelevant. —Quintucket (talk) 04:02, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Criticism needs to be more prominent

Some of the criticism (or a summary of it) should be included in the opening paragraphs. It's important and what best describes this institution. Seeing how much of the criticism has now been corrected this would mean that the opening paragraph would remain neutral (i.e. They didn't permit interracial dating until recently)--ЗAНИA ] 12:24, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Good observation. Care to take a stab at it? —Eustress 02:43, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I also agree that the criticism is unduly downplayed. The college is pretty much solely known for its fringe policies and long history of non-accreditation, however the article as written downplays the former and makes excuses for the latter. However I'm worried that as a staunch secularist, I couldn't edit the article fairly, and would be inclined to go too far in the other direction.

If I have time this January I might like to see if I can't get the book that's cited in claims that the non-accreditation didn't matter for most of its history, and if as I suspect it's either a misrepresentation of the source or the source is one long apologia for BJU, remove those sentences. However the rest of the criticism seems like something I'd have a hard time editing fairly, because it would require adding information that's been lacking, not merely removing one-sided information from a fringe source or odd interpretation of a source. —Quintucket (talk) 04:15, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

For profit status

The citation that BJU is a for-profit school is based on the organization of the entity as one without tax exempt status, which is what people judge colleges' status by on some level, but it is inaccurate. I am almost certain they are organized as a non-profit corporation and just don't have tax exempt status, but there is ambiguity among reliable sources about that, so I think that the article shouldn't claim the university to be for-profit or not, and should clarify this in the text. BranSul (talk) 19:06, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

I concur that a plethora of websites out there claim BJU is one way or another without any real grounding. However, the NCES would seem authoritative on the matter. Plus, the article itself also explains that, "Although BJU never reapplied for federal tax-exempt status and continues to pay federal taxes, a number of its ancillaries, including Bob Jones Academy and the BJU Museum & Gallery, are tax-exempt entities." —Eustress 02:31, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

I just checked the SC Secretary of State for certainty. At http://www.sos.sc.gov/index.asp?n=18&p=4&s=18&corporateid=19735 you can see that BJU is in fact organized as a non-profit. Its tax exempt status is a separate matter. BranSul (talk) 03:23, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

I think you're right. The SOS website also properly categorizes other private non-profits (e.g., Wofford) and for-profits (e.g., Forrest College). Cheers. —Eustress 00:23, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

I sort of think the NCES does that to be a bit slick with making it clear that tax exempt status isn't there? Or they don't see it as a different matter. But I think it's common knowledge among legal that some non-profits are not tax exempt. From the perspective of every state's law (which is the law which forms corps) nonprofit means nobody is getting any dividends. BJU probably doesn't pay state income taxes. BranSul (talk) 06:41, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Handling of sexual assault cases

Apparently, the administration of Bob Jones University referred to victims of sexual assault as "liars" and "sinners", and coerced them not to report the assaults because doing so would "damage Jesus Christ". The university hired a fundamentalist Christian consulting firm to audit its practices regarding sexual assault, but then fired the consulting firm without explanation just before its report was due to be completed. (New York Times, Washington Post. Is this notable? Should it be mentioned in the article? MastCell  06:10, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

It's very notable and should be worked into the controversies section. 98.117.83.122 (talk) 23:50, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Consensus

As can be seen all over this talk page, the consensus is that the article whitewashes the schools long history of straight up racist policies. There is no doubt that pushing the information into a "controversies" section is an attempt to cover up this racism. Further attempts to use WP:Wikilawyering in an attempt to make this school look better on Misplaced Pages will be seen as exactly that. Abductive (reasoning) 19:22, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

I disagree. There's been no attempt to cover up anything. The section on racial policies is c. 5000 words, while the description of the campus, plus discussion of academics (and accreditation) is only c. 8,600. Additional discussion of BJU and race is UNDUE.--John Foxe (talk) 22:26, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view#Article structure. Anyway, you are outnumbered on this talk page. Abductive (reasoning) 01:47, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

It's been suggested in the past that the article structure be more chronological; but as I said then, and repeat now, the problems of doing that, in my opinion, outweigh the benefits. Most folks come to this page with something in mind, and I think a section of "controversies" fits the bill for most. Certainly, it's impossible simply to drop in a single non-contextualized sentence saying, in effect, "These guys are racist jerks" and expect that to be accepted by the community as NPOV.--John Foxe (talk) 16:25, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

They were racists and didn't allow interracial dating until <you tell me>. Abductive (reasoning) 21:06, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

All the details are right there in the article. Take a look.--John Foxe (talk) 01:09, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

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