Jerry Falwell Jr. has filed a $5 million lawsuit to stop Liberty University from featuring a hologram of his late father in a planned center to honor the televangelist.
Mr. Falwell, a trustee of the Falwell Family Trust, filed the lawsuit last month against the school in Lynchburg, Virginia, founded by the Rev. Jerry L. Falwell in 1971. Liberty University is the nation’s largest Christian university. The suit claims that the elder Falwell’s “intellectual property” and trademark were assigned to the family trust when he died in 2007.
The lawsuit, filed July 27 in U.S. District Court in Lynchburg, notes that in November the Rev. Jerry Prevo, the school’s then-president, told a student convocation that the proposed Jerry Falwell Center would include a theater where a hologram of the late televangelist would appear on stage.
“Mr. Prevo stated, ‘The Jerry Falwell theater, they tell me, that they can make him walk right out on the stage as if he was literally there and speak to you … he’s … a man of great faith, we’re going to use some of his sermons’,” the lawsuit states.
The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office granted the elder Falwell a trademark on his name in 2006, covering a range of uses including “ministry services.” Mr. Falwell’s lawsuit alleges the school “has wrongfully exploited” his father’s name and image in an unauthorized use of the elder Falwell’s intellectual property.
A Liberty University spokesman said via email the school “prefers not to comment on active litigation,” but asserted the name of Jerry Falwell Sr. “is synonymous with Liberty University and for decades has been used across campus.”
“This lawsuit is in response to a specific request by Mr. Falwell, one trustee of the Falwell Family Trust, for the university to pay $7 million dollars for his permission to continue to use the name of Liberty’s founder for the next four years. Included in his demand is the expectation that, in effect, former president Falwell would also have total editorial control of Liberty’s use of the name of Liberty’s founder. The university declined the request; so, this lawsuit was filed by Mr. Falwell,” the spokesman said.
Attorney Broderick C. Dunn of Cook Craig & Francuzenko, PLLC in Fairfax, Virginia, represents the family trust. “We do not have any additional comment at this time,” he said when asked about the Liberty statement.
The contention centers on a proposed Jerry Falwell Center for which Liberty is raising funds and offering “naming rights” for a variety of spaces in the planned facility.
Billed as a tribute to Falwell’s legacy, the building is projected to include a 6,878 square foot Rising Flame theater that seats 275, an 8,496 Event Space that can hold 630 people and a Vision Vista Rooftop Garden atop the building, where naming opportunities include hammocks and fire pits, according to a university website promoting the venue.
The lawsuit alleges that Liberty is using the founder’s “name, image, and trademark in commercials and other advertising for Liberty; using his handwriting and signature in promotional materials; and even using casts of his footprints for a walking tour of the campus.”
Mr. Falwell said in a statement: “Liberty announced it is spending approximately $35 million of student tuition money on an ostentatious Disneyesque shrine, including an interactive hologram.”
He said the school is doing this “without authorization, and in an undignified manner that seems to attempt to aggrandize and deify my father in a fawning way that he would never have wanted or approved.”
Mr. Falwell resigned as university president in 2020 following a string of personal scandals and combative interactions with school officials.
• Mark A. Kellner can be reached at mkellner@washingtontimes.com.
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