{"id":32027,"date":"2026-06-01T09:47:02","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T13:47:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=32027"},"modified":"2026-06-01T09:47:02","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T13:47:02","slug":"trey-falwell-sues-liberty-university-years-after-family-scandals-rocked-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/06\/trey-falwell-sues-liberty-university-years-after-family-scandals-rocked-school","title":{"rendered":"Trey Falwell Sues Liberty University Years After Family Scandals Rocked School"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Ken Wolter \/ Shutterstock.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Liberty University is once again facing legal conflict involving the family that helped build the influential Christian school into a national powerhouse.<\/p>\n

Jerry “Trey” Falwell III, the son of former Liberty president Jerry Falwell Jr., has filed a lawsuit against the university, claiming school leaders violated a long-term employment contract after terminating him in 2021.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit, first reported by The Roys Report<\/a>, adds another chapter to the years-long fallout surrounding the Falwell family following the dramatic resignation of Falwell Jr. in 2020 amid personal scandal and controversy.<\/p>\n

According to court filings<\/a> in Lynchburg, Virginia, Trey Falwell alleges Liberty owed him continued compensation after he was dismissed from his role as vice president in April 2021. The complaint centers on a personal services contract signed in January 2016 between Trey Falwell and his father, who was serving as university president at the time.<\/p>\n

The agreement reportedly guaranteed Trey Falwell a salary of $88,000, annual 5% raises, a monthly car allowance, free tuition benefits, and additional compensation through June 2030. Court documents state his salary later increased to $220,000 in 2017.<\/p>\n

Under the terms of the contract, the agreement would only become void if Trey Falwell was fired “for cause.” Otherwise, the university would still be required to continue paying his salary and benefits through 2030, even if his employment ended.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit claims Liberty leaders failed to provide any explanation when they terminated him in April 2021.<\/p>\n

“When Defendant terminated Plaintiff’s employment in April 2021, he immediately became contractually entitled to continued payments of his then-current salary and other amounts, totaling $1,750,000,” the complaint alleges.<\/p>\n

Liberty University strongly denies the claims.<\/p>\n

“Liberty University disputes the allegations about Trey Falwell’s termination without cause and that he is entitled to compensation,” a university spokesman said in a statement to Religion News Service. “The lawsuit is without merit, and the University will vigorously defend this case.”<\/p>\n

The dispute is the latest legal battle involving the Falwell family and the university founded in 1971 by televangelist Jerry Falwell Sr. Following his resignation, Jerry Falwell Jr. also sued the school and later sued his brother, Jonathan Falwell, over retirement benefits and alleged financial mismanagement. Liberty responded with a countersuit seeking $10 million for breach of contract. Those cases were ultimately settled in 2024.<\/p>\n

Falwell Jr.’s departure from Liberty came after years of controversy over his outspoken political involvement and allegations about his personal life, which drew national attention and deeply divided many Christians connected to the university.<\/p>\n

Despite the scandals, Liberty University has continued to grow financially and operationally. According to the school’s IRS filings, Liberty reported $1.8 billion in revenue and $4.3 billion in assets for the fiscal year ending in June 2024 \u2014 a significant increase from the financial figures reported before Falwell Jr.’s resignation.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Falwell remains Liberty’s chancellor and also serves as pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church, the church long associated with the Falwell family legacy.<\/p>\n

For many Christians watching from afar, the ongoing legal battles serve as another reminder of the tension that can arise when faith, leadership, power, and family collide within major ministries and religious institutions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Liberty University is once again facing legal conflict involving the family that helped build the influential Christian school into a national powerhouse. Jerry “Trey” Falwell III, the son of former Liberty president Jerry Falwell Jr., has filed a lawsuit against the university, claiming school leaders violated a long-term employment contract after terminating him in 2021.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":32030,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nTrey Falwell Sues Liberty University Years After Family Scandals Rocked School<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Trey Falwell is suing Liberty University, claiming the Christian school violated a long-term employment contract after firing him.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/06\/trey-falwell-sues-liberty-university-years-after-family-scandals-rocked-school\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trey Falwell Sues Liberty University Years After Family Scandals Rocked School\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Trey Falwell is suing Liberty University, claiming the Christian school violated a long-term employment contract after firing him.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/06\/trey-falwell-sues-liberty-university-years-after-family-scandals-rocked-school\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-01T13:47:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2026\/06\/Liberty-University_credit-Ken-Wolter-Shutterstock.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Beliefnet Contributors\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Trey Falwell Sues Liberty University Years After Family Scandals Rocked School","description":"Trey Falwell is suing Liberty University, claiming the Christian school violated a long-term employment contract after firing him.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/06\/trey-falwell-sues-liberty-university-years-after-family-scandals-rocked-school","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Trey Falwell Sues Liberty University Years After Family Scandals Rocked School","og_description":"Trey Falwell is suing Liberty University, claiming the Christian school violated a long-term employment contract after firing him.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/06\/trey-falwell-sues-liberty-university-years-after-family-scandals-rocked-school","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2026-06-01T13:47:02+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":900,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2026\/06\/Liberty-University_credit-Ken-Wolter-Shutterstock.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Beliefnet Contributors","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/06\/trey-falwell-sues-liberty-university-years-after-family-scandals-rocked-school","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/06\/trey-falwell-sues-liberty-university-years-after-family-scandals-rocked-school","name":"Trey Falwell Sues Liberty University Years After Family Scandals Rocked School","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/06\/trey-falwell-sues-liberty-university-years-after-family-scandals-rocked-school#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/06\/trey-falwell-sues-liberty-university-years-after-family-scandals-rocked-school#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2026\/06\/Liberty-University_credit-Ken-Wolter-Shutterstock.jpg","datePublished":"2026-06-01T13:47:02+00:00","dateModified":"2026-06-01T13:47:02+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/450625ec20bf3e8a84060b9321455f3d"},"description":"Trey Falwell is suing Liberty University, claiming the Christian school violated a long-term employment contract after firing him.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/06\/trey-falwell-sues-liberty-university-years-after-family-scandals-rocked-school#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/06\/trey-falwell-sues-liberty-university-years-after-family-scandals-rocked-school"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/06\/trey-falwell-sues-liberty-university-years-after-family-scandals-rocked-school#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2026\/06\/Liberty-University_credit-Ken-Wolter-Shutterstock.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2026\/06\/Liberty-University_credit-Ken-Wolter-Shutterstock.jpg","width":1200,"height":900,"caption":"Ken Wolter \/ Shutterstock.com"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/06\/trey-falwell-sues-liberty-university-years-after-family-scandals-rocked-school#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Trey Falwell Sues Liberty University Years After Family Scandals Rocked School"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/450625ec20bf3e8a84060b9321455f3d","name":"Brandy Grenier","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e53\/e53f6ea4c6b15081d4df68e2d7d7750ex96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e53\/e53f6ea4c6b15081d4df68e2d7d7750ex96.jpg","caption":"Brandy Grenier"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/bgrenier"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/516"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32027"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32033,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32027\/revisions\/32033"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}