(Other family photographs from the weekend show the engagement of Falwell Jr.’s daughter Caroline, a Liberty student.).

A poster on Reddit compiled Falwell Jr.’s potential violations in the yacht photograph and an accompanying video, and calculated that a student captured in the same scene could have accrued more than $9,000 in school fines and 900 hours of required service, and possible expulsion.

“For at least a decade, Liberty’s faculty have labored under Falwell’s increasingly autocratic leadership and been shamed by his public behavior besides,” said Marybeth Davis Baggett, who taught English at Liberty for 17 years and resigned this spring after publishing an op-ed calling for Falwell Jr.’s removal based on his handling of the coronavirus crisis.

But Liberty has also been under almost constant national scrutiny since Falwell Jr.

initially dismissed it as “hype,” and called a Liberty parent who questioned him on Twitter a “dummy.” He was then criticized for welcoming back any students who wanted to return to campus after spring break.

(Fewer than 2,000 of 15,000 residential students ultimately returned, and Liberty has avoided any outbreaks.) In May, Falwell Jr.

None of these media dust-ups seemed to dent Falwell Jr.’s favorability in the eyes of his hand-picked board of trustees.

Mark Walker, a former Southern Baptist pastor and Republican congressman from North Carolina, tweeted that Falwell Jr.’s “ongoing behavior is appalling” and called for him to step down.

(Walker is the vice chairman of the House Republican Caucus.) Dean Inserra, a prominent Florida pastor and Liberty graduate, tweeted that “the leadership at the top is tragic” and urged the board to “show some courage.” Colby Garman, a Southern Baptist pastor and executive committee member of the denomination in Virginia, also called on Falwell Jr.

Jordan, a Liberty graduate with strong ties to the alumni community.

“It’s a very encouraging moment for the Liberty community,” said Dustin Wahl, a 2018 Liberty graduate who recently helped assembled a 501(c)(4) advocacy group to pressure the board to remove Falwell Jr.

Liberty’s board has shown us that their only public convictions relate to alcohol and sex.” Calum Best, who graduated this spring and collaborated with Wahl on the new advocacy group, said that while Falwell Jr.’s leave “certainly feels like a victory,” he was troubled that the board didn’t respond to a recent alumni-led petition with almost 40,000 signatures, but rather to Republican congressmen and pastors behind the scenes.

Still, the board’s resistance to countless previous calls for Falwell Jr.’s departure is exactly what makes Friday’s announcement so significant.

“Many of us who have been close to Liberty for years never thought this board of trustees would take this action, or any type of discipline, against Mr.

For now, however, the school is without a Falwell at its head for the first time since its founding in 1971.