Truett McConnell University Fires Suspended President Emir Caner
Emir Caner’s tenure as Truett McConnell University (TMU) president ended on Friday. when trustees announced his firing from the Southern Baptist school in Cleveland, Georgia.
The dismissal comes five months after The Roys Report first reported that for years, Caner ignored allegations of grooming and sexual abuse by Bradley Reynolds, the school’s academic vice president. The woman alleging the abuse was TMU graduate and former soccer coach Hayle Swinson.
Caner was suspended by trustees June 6, one week after TRR’s reporting roiled the campus and its northeast Georgia community.
The school’s trustees met yesterday to hear the results of an independent probe into Reynolds’ alleged misconduct and Caner’s alleged coverup. The Now Habersham news website reported that journalists were barred from that meeting.
A search for a new TMU president will now begin, trustees said today. For now, John Yarbrough, TMU’s public policy director, will continue as interim president. Yarbrough was also a past president of the Georgia Baptist Convention, with which TMU is affiliated through its mission board.
Reynolds came to TMU in 2009 and abruptly quit in 2024 when the White County Sheriff’s Office began investigating Swinson’s charges against the administrator and teacher. A former TMU staff member told TRR that Caner was informed of allegations against Reynolds as early as 2016, but nothing was done.
Caner also allegedly ignored a 2019 petition from 50 female students at TMU, complaining about Reynolds.
The school commissioned Atlanta-based investigator Richard Hyde along with Phoenix Research LLC to handle the probe on a possible coverup. Described as a former police officer and Emmy-winning journalist, Hyde is chief investigator for the law firm of Balch and Bingham LLP.
Swinson told TRR that Reynolds, married with children at the time they met, undertook a years-long effort to “groom” her. He told Swinson his wife would die and that God had selected the young student as a replacement.
TRR obtained copies of roughly 300 emails Reynolds sent Swinson, some describing in explicit detail the administrator’s “wet dreams” about the coed.
Swinson said Reynolds touched areas of her body inappropriately, after the two had engaged in one-on-one “discipleship” sessions. The contact progressed to what Swinson said was digital rape.
TRR also obtained a 57-page dossier prepared by Swinson’s lawyer Marcia Shein and friend and investigator, Stephanie Schuessler, that described the young woman’s experience.
Swinson also recounted her ordeal in a podcast with TRR’s Julie Roys.
“I was groomed, I was confused, I was targeted,” Swinson told Roys. “I felt isolated, like I was alone. . . . It took, and it has taken, and it will take years of my life to unwind every lie that was told to me.”
Swinson attended the school on an athletic scholarship. She was subsequently hired as a soccer coach there, sand aid she suffered emotional trauma from the sexual abuse and became suicidal.
This article has been republished courtesy of The Roys Report.
Mark A. Kellner is a reporter based in Mesquite, Nevada. He most recently covered statewide elections for the New York Post and was for three years the Faith & Family Reporter for The Washington Times. Mark is a graduate of the University of the Cumberlands and also attended Boston University’s College of Communication.