The March 25 hearing in Newberry, S.C., was scheduled by the judge to following up on a temporary restraining order he issued March 15. His restraining order barred a new trustees board for the college from meeting and making decisions. The General Synod of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church had appointed the new board in early March after it dismissed 14 of the 30 members of the original board.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit include two of the “dismissed” trustees, Richard Taylor and Parker Young, and the executive committee of the Erskine Alumni Association. They have asked that the judge make his temporary restraining order into a permanent injunction against the ARP Synod thus restoring the original board of trustees; and they have asked that the court recognize that the college, not the ARP, owns all Erskine property and assets.
The ARP lawyers argued on March 25 that the two trustees filing the lawsuit did not have standing to bring such a lawsuit because they could claim only personal loss; they were not suing in the name of the whole Board of trustees. To the claim that the college owned the Erskine property and assets, a witness for the ARP, Kenneth Wingate, described the relationship between Erskine and the ARP Synod as a mother and child connected by an umbilical cord. Wingate is a member of the Synod’s Moderator’s Commission.
Also pending this week for Erskine is an April 1 deadline to respond to concerns raised by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the accreditation agency. According to college spokesman Rick Hendricks, the college has already submitted all the documentation asked for by SACS.
A spokesman for SACS told the Anderson, S.C. Independent Mail that the college could be sanctioned if it was found in violation of “two key standards — that the board is free from undue political, religious or other external influences, and that board member dismissals are appropriate and involve a fair process,” according to the newspaper.
The Association of Theological Schools (ATS), had also sought information in the face of events at Erskine. It has scheduled a site visit to the campus in Due West, S.C., on May 3 and the task the school faces, according to Hendricks, is to show cause about whether or not the seminary’s accreditation should be put on probation or pulled. During the site visit, ATS officials will be talking with representatives of Erskine College, Erskine Seminary, and the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church.
