Former IBLP member Emily Elizabeth Anderson shares in the series that she was Jane Doe III, as she chose to be determined when she and 9 other females taken legal action against Gothard in 2016, declaring sexual assault and harassment.
She remembers Gothard welcoming her when she was 14 to stop homeschool and go live at IBLP’s Chicago head office “indefinitely.” He informed her that her dad didn’t like her any longer and “had lost all authority over her,” she declares, so Gothard “would be her new authority.”
Elizabeth explains a night where Gothard brought her approximately his workplace and was noticeably shocked to see a male assistant still working, presuming they were going to be alone.
Gothard resigned from the IBLP board in March 2014 in the middle of an outdoors legal counsel examination into sexual misbehavior accusations that eventually identified he acted in an “inappropriate,” if not criminal, way. When IBLP shared the examination’s findings in June 2014, Gothard stated in a later-deleted declaration, “My actions of holding of hands, hugs, and touching of feet or hair with young ladies crossed the boundaries of discretion and were wrong.”
The now 88- year-old did not return E!’s ask for remark and decreased to comment for the series. He has actually formerly rejected accusations of sexual misbehavior.
The complainants dropped their claim in 2018 however informed Recovering Grace (an online assistance neighborhood for alums of IBLP and its homeschool curriculum, the Advanced Training Institute) that they were “not recanting” their accusations “or dismissing the incalculable damage that we believe Gothard has done by his actions and certain teachings.”
Explaining on the program why they stopped pursuing Gothard in court, in addition to statutes of constraints and the monetary concern, Elizabeth states, “It’s constantly rehashing the most horrific memories of your life and telling them again and again. If you decide to move forward in a case it’s also important that you realize the emotional toll that it’s going to continue to take on you. Quite frankly, the cost was too high.”
Jinger Duggar, who detailed her break from IBLP in her 2023 narrative, was the only member of her household to relatively comment in reaction to Gothard’s legal concerns. She tweeted in 2018 that, while she was a Christian, “I need to be sincere, and real to myself by tweeting this. I do not assistance Bill Gothard and the Institute of Biblical [sic] Life Principles in any method, shape, or kind. I discover his ‘mentors’ very doubtful.”
