TBC, BU settle dispute for $11M
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ISSUE: 11/29/07 > NEWS > TBC, BU settle dispute for $11M
Belmont University and the Tennessee Baptist Convention have ended a long relationship and avoided what some have called an unchristian civil court trial by settling for an amount that will end up being close to the university’s original offer.
Belmont will give the TBC $1 million next year followed by annual payments of $250,000 for the next 40 years, and about $4.9 million being held by the TBC will be transferred to another trustee, said Marty Dickens, chairman of the board of trustees. The settlement ended Belmont’s 56-year relationship with the TBC.
“It’s a happy day that we’ve got this thing behind us,” Dickens said. “We wanted a relationship with the TBC; they chose not to have a relationship unless it would be 100 percent Baptist on the board.
“We reserve the right to have up to 40 percent non-Baptist, Christian members on our board,” Dickens said. The other 60 percent will remain Baptist.
The TBC filed the lawsuit in September 2006 after Belmont wanted to add non-Baptist Christians to the university’s board of trustees. The complaint cited a document from 1951. The document, which Belmont found and turned over to the TBC, addressed the possibility of the relationship between the two coming to an end. The TBC interpreted it to mean that if Belmont severed ties with the TBC, the university must return all money it had received from the TBC. At the time of the suit, that was about $58 million, excluding any interest it might have drawn.
The university originally offered the TBC $5 million to settle the suit outside of court, but the TBC declined the offer because it wasn’t enough money, Dickens said.
The money Belmont will give to the TBC will total $11 million. But, because most of the payments are spread over 40 years, it will only cost the university about $5.2 million. Belmont will put $4.2 million into a fund generating $250,000 in interest a year.
The original offer is almost exactly what the settlement amounts to. “We should’ve solved this two years ago,” Dickens said.
Belmont had no moral or legal responsibility to pay the TBC, said Jason Rogers, the vice president of administration and university counsel. “It was a choice that Belmont made to send funds as an expression of gratitude for past support.”
Although Belmont’s senior administration was confident in the outcome of a trial, it was in the university’s best interest to settle outside of court, he said. “It ends what was likely to have been several years of protracted legal battles.” Now the administration can focus all of its attention on the university and its students.
The payments to the TBC will not come from the students or the money Belmont will receive from the TBC, Dickens said. It will just be a part of the university’s operating expenses.
The $4.9 million to be transferred from the TBC will be used to benefit the university. Of that $4.9 million, $1.5 was under dispute because of the 1951 document, Dickens said.
“The language could be interpreted to say you have to be affiliated with the TBC, or the money doesn’t come to you, or some question as to the Baptist-ness of Belmont,” Dickens said.
A smaller amount of money, $600,000, will stay with the TBC because the document made it clear Belmont would not receive that money, so it was not included in the settlement, Dickens said.
Belmont announced the settlement the same day the TBC’s annual convention started. “I think they were feeling the pressure of wanting to have something done because of the unrest in the convention,” Dickens said.
“The people saying, ‘We want to punish Belmont,’ are some of the same people who said ‘We shouldn’t be suing, it’s not Biblical,’” he said.
Nicole Loveless, a Belmont senior, was raised Southern Baptist, and when the TBC first filed a lawsuit against Belmont, she was upset.
“It really upset me that an organization I had learned so much from was acting in a manner that was so unchristian,” Loveless said. “I think the fact that they filed a lawsuit and that we even have to have a settlement is troublesome.”
In Belmont’s announcement of the settlement, Dickens wrote: “We believe that this resolution honors the many significant contributions the Tennessee Baptists have made to the University and upholds the teachings of Jesus Christ, whom we all seek to serve by ending litigation.”
“Jesus would tell us that we shouldn’t be having these conflicts,” Dickens said.
Three students didn’t think they should be having these conflicts either, including Loveless, demonstrated when they set up a silent protest last fall. Nicholas Williams, a senior; Melody Drushal, a sophomore; and Loveless went to the Tennessee Baptist Convention headquarters in Brentwood, along with 27 other students, to show their disapproval of the settlement.
Each student silently dropped off a letter and a one-dollar bill. The day before the protest, Belmont’s senior administration contacted the three students. “They wanted to make sure we were going to show good character,” Williams said.
The TBC also contacted the group, letting them know the organization would set aside a conference room for the students to express their concerns.
Williams remembered one student asking if Jesus would use money as leverage against someone he had been gracious towards. “His response will forever stick in my mind,” Williams said, “He said, ‘I’m not Jesus.’”
Drushal is relieved the conflict is over and was settled outside of court. “You can give credit to the TBC because they did accept the settlement, and in doing so they showed it wasn’t so much an issue that they wanted money, but a fulfillment of the document from 1951.
“When they wanted $58 million from us, I think that was just greed,” Drushal said.
Although the relationship between the TBC and Belmont has ended, Belmont has not ceased to be a Christian university. “There is no change anticipated in the way this university’s run,” Dickens said. For example, convocation will remain a part of Belmont life.
The university’s policies regarding faculty and staff will also stay the same, Rogers said. “The ending of the relationship with the TBC will not change anything about university policy about hiring faculty that are Christians.”
