God’s Harvard Patrick Henry College was supposed to be a safe place. For these young

God’s Harvard Patrick Henry College was supposed to be a safe place. For these young women, it wasn’t

Posted on February 21, 2014
The security guards were bored. It was the first weekend of May 2010—a time when students at other universities were partying before finals. This, however, was Patrick Henry College (PHC), the elite evangelical school better known as “God’s Harvard.” Here, in sleepy Purcellville, Virginia, instead of police officers or rent-a-cops, the security guards were all upperclassmen. On a good Friday or Saturday night, they’d catch freshmen trying to sneak back onto campus after an evening visiting the monuments in nearby Washington, D.C. Mostly, though, they just double-checked that all the doors were locked.

Patrick Henry College was founded in 2000, but you won’t find any bold, modern architecture on campus: Its buildings were designed in the federalist style to evoke an Ivy League school. Dress code is business casual during the week. Daily chapel is mandatory. Drinking, smoking, gambling, and dancing (outside of dance classes) aren’t allowed on campus—only wholesome, school-sanctioned hijinks, like the tradition of tossing newly engaged young men in the central retention pond known as Lake Bob: a “Bobtism.” The security guards saw quite a few Bobtisms.

That May night, Adam Fisher and another guard watched the security monitors from their post. It was long past the 1 a.m. weekend curfew, a time when campus had the still and quiet feel of a small town hours after everyone has gone to bed. It seemed like any other night, but then Fisher’s colleague called out in excitement. He’d caught something on the monitors: the dim glow of brake lights, out there in the darkness. A car was pulling up to the campus entrance.

Fisher and his partner headed out past the dorms, to the fields near the entry. By the time they arrived, the car was gone, and Claire Spear was lying in a field. There was grass in her long, red hair, and she was crying.

Fisher could tell something was very wrong. “Claire, we need to go find your R.A.,” Adam said. “I’m going to take you. Is that OK with you?” She couldn’t answer. She was panicking and having trouble breathing.

Adam picked Claire up and carried her back across campus to the dorms. She was limp in his arms, and her eyes were closed. Claire struggled to explain what had happened.

“She kept saying that she had been violated,” Adam remembers.