Recovering Severance Pay for Fired SBTS Professors

In April the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary  dismissed dozens of faculty and staff members due to budget cutbacks stemming from the crisis created by the Covid19 pandemic. The administration required the dismissed professors to sign a “Separation Agreement and Release” in order to receive severance pay. Included in this “Agreement” are requirements not to disclose any of its content, including even the acknowledgment of the Agreement’s existence. In fact, anyone who signs this document pledges himself not to talk about it, with anyone except his lawyer or accountant.
 
Not even his pastor.
Not even his wife.
 
This document also requires those who sign it to promise never to “make any public or private statements (whether oral or in writing) that are derogatory or damaging to Southern Seminary, or any of its administration, faculty or staff, except as required in response to a subpoena, court order, or other legal compulsion….”
 
Two professors are unwilling to sign this document, which means that the seminary will not provide them with any severance pay.
 
For 22 years Dr. Russell Fuller was a full professor of Old Testament, Hebrew & Aramaic at Southern. For 18 years Dr. Jim Orrick was a full professor of literature and culture at Boyce College. Both men served with distinction.
 
They deserve to be provided with a proper severance. Since the seminary they have served for decades refuses to provide this unless they sign the NDA, I have taken it upon myself to raise money to help replace what is being withheld from them.
 
To do this, we need to raise $40,000. So I am asking you to consider contributing to this need to help these faithful men who are standing on principle. All monies received will go to make up for the money being withheld from them by Southern Seminary.