Dorothy Patterson has degrees from Hardin-Simmons University, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, Luther Rice Seminary, and the University of South Africa.
[1] She has been described as "one of today's leading scholars on the topic of biblical womanhood.
[4] In 2013, Patterson initiated a 12-year project of installing over 60 stained glass windows on the SWBTS campus to honor leaders in the conservative resurgence.
[5] In May 2019, an SWBTS former student, named "Jane Roe" in legal papers, filed a lawsuit against Paige Patterson for threatening, intimidating, and humiliating her when she told him that she had been repeatedly raped at gunpoint in 2014 and 2015 by another seminary student.
After Roe withdrew from SWBTS in 2015, Dorothy Patterson allegedly sent Jane Roe a message that she was "certainly doing the right thing to move away” and should not be “casting blame on someone else" for what happened.