Too often, when faced with the fervent demands and outlandish behavior of student demonstrators, university officials allowed them to violate institutional policies, disrupt academic life, and harass Jews. When presidents finally acted, many negotiated with the protesters and capitulated to their demands. Even those who rightly called the police often failed to impose serious consequences on the disrupters. In the end, few protesters face meaningful sanctions for their extended violations of campus policies and, in many cases, the law.

Yet, the protesters and their allies complained about “authoritarian” crackdowns, betrayals of democratic values, and free-speech violations as their camps got cleared away. Their complaints can be attributed partly to ignorance; a student speaker at Harvard University’s commencement, for example, proclaimed to a cheering crowd that the university had violated students’ “right to civil disobedience,” a right she genuinely seemed to believe that they had. One poll showed that more than half of those who said they supported chanting “From the river to the sea” were unable to name the river and the sea to which the chant referred. When a young woman at New York University was asked what she wanted the university to do, she turned the question to her friend: “Why are we protesting?”

Many of the protesters’ complaints, however, are part of a campaign to get universities to serve an anti-Israel and anti-American political agenda. As Roua Daas, a graduate student at Pennsylvania State University, recently explained, one of the strategic purposes of campus encampments is to advance a Marxist “sharpening of contradictions,” highlighting the tensions between institutions’ professed values and their actual behavior. She noted, for example, that “students have . . . used mass demonstrations and disruptions on public property to capture public attention and then force the state and police to repress us in full public view.” These students and their allies want to get arrested, so that they can then produce propaganda designed to convince people that American universities are not committed to free speech. The mendacious and naïve alike serve these goals by repeating claims about “peaceful protests” and free-speech violations, never acknowledging that the encampments are often illegal, dangerous, and prohibited by university codes of conduct.

Though the strategy does not appear to be working off campus—polls show that many Americans think the protests and encampments have gone too far—colleges and universities have been badly shaken. These institutions have themselves to blame, as they are hypocritical about free expression on campus, though not in the way the protesters think. University administrators have historically been lenient toward those demonstrating for causes they support; they have used prejudicial admissions and hiring to create left-leaning campus communities; and they insist that social-justice activism is essential to their institutional missions. They have thus allowed their campuses to become ideological tinderboxes.

Unlike Max Frisch’s Biedermann, college and university administrators should take the agitators at their word.

The campus protesters and their off-campus supporters’ beliefs were on full display at the People’s Conference for Palestine, held in a publicly funded convention center over Memorial Day weekend in Detroit. Organized by several far-left groups, including the People’s Forum, the National Students for Justice in Palestine, and the Palestinian Youth Movement, the gathering featured many of the most radical people and groups involved in university protests and encampments. Students from around the country met for three days to discuss strategy, tactics, and their common goals: the destruction of Israel, the eradication of Zionism, and the radical transformation of the United States.

The conference had close ties to Palestinian terrorism. A promotional video featured Salah Salah, a founding member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and participants included Wisam Rafeedie, also affiliated with that organization, and Sana’ Daqqa, the wife of Walid Daqqa, who spent 38 years in prison for his role in the abduction, torture, and murder of an Israeli man in the 1980s. The crowd gave Rafeedie a standing ovation and Daqqa a hero’s welcome.

During panel discussions, the audience cheered loudest when speakers endorsed violent resistance or called for the eradication of Israel. Between sessions, participants chanted genocidal slogans and danced to contemporary remixes of nationalistic music from the First Intifada.

The speakers at the conference repeatedly endorsed terrorism (what they called “armed resistance”) and placed the protests and other actions in North America (and Europe) in the context of such violence, including the intifadas and October 7. In an opening address, emcee Mohammed Nabulsi, long involved in the Palestinian Youth Movement, set the tone by “extending our salutations . . . to our noble, steadfast resistance, who continues to defend our people and honors our dignity in struggle” and recognizing the “brave and noble resistance that defends our people from beneath the rubble, from beneath the ground”—almost certainly a reference to Hamas.

Several speakers on the panel devoted to “Palestinian Resistance and the Path to Liberation” also endorsed violence. Abdaljawad Omar, a Palestinian academic, called the idea that “resistance is terrorism” a myth. He added that, without “the events of October 7th . . . the political possibilities we now witness would not exist,” among which he included “the rise of the student movement in the United States and North America and Europe” and “the demands for divestment and boycott of academic institution[s].” Another speaker, Ashraf Talhed (whose talk has since been deleted), said that “liberation only comes from armed struggle” and informed the audience that “there are many wars to come, people. We have to be ready for this.”

That wasn’t all. Speaking on another panel, Sara Kershnar of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network mentioned “the right to resist and armed resistance” and said, “in that way, we are unequivocally with the resistance in Palestine.” To loud applause, a speaker from South Africa told the crowd that the most important aspect of their movement was “armed struggle because if the enemy refuses to die it must be killed.” And a representative from Writers Against the War on Gaza explained that the group provides “political education . . . to normalize armed struggle, and this often looks like putting on a film screening with a panel discussion afterwards or publishing writings by or about revolutionaries.”

The speakers left no doubt of their belief that Palestinian liberation requires Israel’s destruction and the eradication of Zionism. Nabulsi was straightforward at the outset: The purpose of the conference was to “craft a path forward that truly brings the Zionist state and its military and its imperialist backers to their knees.” He spoke of their “commitment . . . to liberate every inch of Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea” (perhaps specified for the students in the audience). Rafeedie, who said that “these Zionists lie like they breathe,” was clear: “There is no longer a place for the two-state solution for any Palestinian. The only solution is one democratic Palestinian state on all Palestinian land, which will end the Zionist project in Palestine.” Kershnar agreed, opening her remarks by mentioning her “lifelong struggle to dismantle Zionism and the state of Israel.” Alluding to the activity of the last eight months, she said, “There is no going back. From here, Israel is going to fall.” Loud applause ensued.

This is the context in which calls for a ceasefire must be understood. Echoing what has been said on many campuses recently, Nabulsi noted that “a ceasefire is the floor of our demands” because it represented only an immediate need in the longer struggle to destroy Israel. Daas concurred, underscoring the importance of efforts to “weaken the state of Israel.” “This is the building of a revolutionary movement, and students feel that,” she said. “Students feel the revolution, they feel it in their blood, they feel it in their soul, they feel it in their heart, and, ultimately, that is what drives us.” Many student protesters are surely demanding a ceasefire for humanitarian reasons, but the vanguard of these movements knows the real purpose: to help Hamas and the broader Palestinian resistance.

Many of the talks expressed Marxist ideas, and the theme of revolution resounded throughout the conference. Several speakers viewed the destruction of Israel as the key to various other revolutionary causes. In an opening keynote, Yara Shoufani, an organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement, claimed that “Gaza stands at the center of the world, waging a heroic battle, not only against Zionism and its backers, but in service of world revolution.” Repeating a refrain heard on campuses many times this year, Lara Kiswani, executive director of the Arab Resource & Organizing Center, added on a later panel that “literally all oppressed people are not free until all of us are free, and we can say without a shadow of a doubt in this political moment that Palestine is the road map for global justice, that Palestine is the road map for freedom of all people.” She said the struggle serves “all movements against U.S. imperialism” and mentioned “the ongoing struggle for land back and decolonization for the indigenous people of this land.” During her panel, Kershnar noted, “In this country, Palestine is understood as a front of antiracist struggle alongside black liberation and indigenous sovereignty” and added that “it is crucial to the future of humanity and the very survival of the planet that we dismantle Zionism.” Speakers advocated for revolutions in several other countries. For many, Palestine is the centerpiece of a leftist omni-cause that is anti-American, anti-capitalist, and anti-police, in addition to anti-Zionist.

At their core, the Marxist and nationalist ideologies on display at the conference are ersatz religions, detached from reality. Their proponents believe that struggle against Israel is not just political but existential. They view Palestine’s cause as linked to the global struggle for justice. A Korean-American speaker, Ju-Hyun Park, for example, highlighted the endlessness of the fight: “Revolution is not a one-time thing. Revolution is not a short-term goal. Revolution is a lifetime of dedication and action to transform our worlds. Revolution is an entire historical era that will span generations.” Park, who proudly declared that “the DPRK has never once recognized the Zionist tumor that goes by the name of Israel,” said it “was no exaggeration” when Sana’ Daqqa claimed that “We will not capitulate. It is either victory or death.” He said that “all of humanity” faces “a choice between liberation and extinction.”

The academic Omar made the stakes explicit in his talk on a text by Bassel al-Araj, who was imprisoned for planning attacks against Israel. He called the late criminal’s writings a “a love letter to the struggle imbued with a kind of sublime necessity that resonates deeply with the Palestinian experience, a defense of the wonder, the awesomeness of struggle, even when it includes the horrific.”

These are the beliefs and goals of those organizing, supporting, and seeking to harness the protest movements that have emerged in America and elsewhere since October 7. They view the demonstrations as a front in their war against Israel, Zionism, and American empire. As Nabulsi said, their “fundamental role is to generate political and social crisis within the American ruling class,” with the goal of making “the continued prosecution of this war politically, socially, and economically untenable.” The “unsanctioned marches, bridge and train shutdowns, airport caravans and shutdowns, encampments, building takeovers, targeting of weapons manufacturers . . . shutting down events, bird-dogging,” Nabulsi admitted, is aimed at changing American policy in Gaza: “We need to be clear. The chief target has been the Biden administration. Ultimately, the Biden administration, and to an extent the Democratic Party, is the primary vessel that controls the policies and the decisions that actually impact our people in Gaza.”

They do not care about the principles they sometimes cite to advance their goals. As Nabulsi exclaimed, “They tell us they want us to save democracy. We want to save our people. To hell with their democracy.”

They do not care about our universities, either. They are simply using them as pawns in their revolutionary struggle. As Daas said, “We are in the belly of the beast . . . we are located in the primary supporter and sustainer of Israel’s power, and our universities are expressions of that.” Whereas before students would work within the institution, now “the role of the student movement has shifted, and now we are working to transform our institutions . . . the target is the institution.” While students are entitled to share their views on campus, academic leaders need to recognize and reject these efforts to infiltrate their schools.

Administrators should also note the connection between off-campus activists and student demonstrations. We already know, for example, that outside agitators were sharing recruiting documents and giving students pro bono legal assistance. The conference’s attendees confirmed the extent of the collaboration. As the Writers Against the War on Gaza representative at the conference noted, “we were at the encampments, and . . . we were kind of lending our support through media trainings initially, but . . . ended up becoming somewhat of organizers.” Daas, who complained that claims of outside coordination were false, later insisted that anti-Israel groups “must continue to build power on campus, we must continue to agitate students, to mobilize them, and organize them, and . . . we must do this in tandem with the community.”

The looming question for higher education leaders is whether protests will return in the fall. Universities need to be ready if they do. These demonstrations are supported by off-campus activists, who want to exploit and further corrupt our educational institutions. The people involved view American universities as part of both a long-term war to eradicate Israel and undermine the United States. The vanguard of these movements is driven by a quasi-spiritual desire for revolution. They will not be satisfied by civil discourse and the free exchange of ideas.

University administrators can and should use the ordinary means at their disposal—reasonable time, manner, and place restrictions—to quash the more aggressive demonstrations. They can enforce their existing policies against harassment, discrimination, and creating a hostile environment to the same effect. If they haven’t already, they should adopt official policies of institutional neutrality, ruling out the political statements, divestments, and academic boycotts that protesters are demanding.

Administrators and faculty could also offer educational opportunities, including ones that will appeal to their students’ moral instincts but give them a chance to think through the complexity, history, and politics of the Israel-Palestine conflict. They have compassion for the suffering in Gaza: But do they understand what happened on October 7? They want to divest from material support for war: Do they want to sleep in tents and eat food supplied by supporters of Hamas? Have they studied what terms such as “settler colonialism,” “genocide,” and “apartheid” really mean? Those who already think like the speakers at the Detroit conference might be too far gone to be reached, but many students participating in the protests might reconsider when presented with history and facts.

In the long term, colleges and universities must reform their admissions and hiring processes. Institutions should reevaluate what they look for in the people who join their campus communities. Free speech must be protected, but prospective students need to respect the academic purposes of these schools. They should be selected primarily for their academic promise, not their activist commitments.

The ultimate question is this: Will academic leaders recognize the danger they have brought to their campuses, or will they hand the activists a pack of matches?

This article appeared in City Journal on June 19, 2024.

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Ambassador Bolton served as assistant to the president and national security advisor under President Donald Trump from 2018 to 2019. He was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006 and served in high-level positions in the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush. His incisive commentary on world affairs and America’s role has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and other major newspapers.

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Download a transcript of the podcast HERE.
Note: Please check any quotations against the audio recording.

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The December 5 testimony before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce centered on the rise of vitriolic and explicit antisemitic behavior among both students and faculty on American campuses in the wake of the attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7. The testimony featured presentations by three college presidents, Claudine Gay of Harvard University, Sally Kornbluth of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and M. Elizabeth Magill of the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), in which the witnesses spent four hours obfuscating, deflecting, robotically mimicking one another with legally engineered answers, and generally struggling to address basic questions on how they have responded on their respective campuses to an explosion of antisemitic speech and conduct in keeping with stated principles of freedom of speech.

The rampant double standards were clearly evident to anyone paying attention to prevailing campus culture at American colleges and universities. When pressed, higher education leaders wrapped themselves in their reverence for free speech—but without the slightest acknowledgment that their own institutions have systemically driven out heterodox voices (either through private harassment and isolation and/or via public shaming), disinvited and shouted down speakers, and spent tens of millions policing language and thought on their campuses. The intellectual and ethical muddle displayed at the hearing has continued in the days since, as several of the witnesses try to “clarify” their deficient statements and only deepen the holes they dug for themselves.

None of them seemed aware that they presided over echo chambers where claims of “settler colonialism,” “intersectionality,” “implicit bias,” and other manifestations of an obsessive focus on race and gender have replaced objective study of the human condition. They themselves oversee campus cultures where students are now more likely to endorse reflexively the primitive, destructive libels of antisemitism.

The dysfunction at Penn came to a climax on December 9, with the resignation of President Magill and the board chair. President Magill had been unable to give a full-throated yes to Representative Elise Stefanik’s question about whether calling for genocide of the Jews would violate Penn’s policies. But as Penn’s now-former board chair Scott Bok said, President Magill’s downfall was that she gave an insipid legal answer to what was a moral question, and the moral and ethical bankruptcy in evidence at that moment was deafening. What kind of campus produces students in such significant numbers who demonstrate in favor of a terrorist group guilty of the worst murder of Jews since the Holocaust?

Then there is the compelling matter of consistency of policy. Penn, like so many other institutions, has suddenly hewed to the principle of free expression. How strange that it is emerging now, after October 7, on a campus where faculty and administrators have continued a multi-year effort to silence Penn Law Professor Amy Wax for speech they openly acknowledge is protected.

For example, it was Harvard’s Claudine Gay who stood by as distinguished biologist Carole Hooven was systematically ostracized and marginalized—effectively driven from her teaching career for supporting the incontrovertible scientific fact of biological sex difference. Claudine Gay has so far avoided the reckoning with her board and faculty. The finding that only 3% of Harvard faculty identify as conservative speaks volumes about that campus’s readiness to burst into pro-Hamas jubilation on October 8.

As significant as President Magill’s departure is, it is hardly the national catharsis needed to remedy the ethical bankruptcy of our current campus culture. Penn, its elite sister institutions, and many other American colleges have far more to do.

To see real course correction, new leadership with a deep commitment to free expression—armed with the authority to make these changes—is now required. Unfortunately, higher education leaders appear to be taking exactly the wrong lesson from the hearings and subsequent developments. Though they failed to speak when conscience alone would have summoned them to condemn the barbarity of Hamas, what they must not do now is intensify censorship and add to the already lengthy list of prohibited speech in yet another ham-fisted attempt to remediate their own sorry past performances.

Instead of policing speech, college presidents should remove barriers to free expression and worry exclusively about fairly enforcing codes of conduct that forbid violence and terroristic threats. If chanting the words “Whites only” at a campus rally is per se harassment, so should be “Globalize intifada.” Claudine Gay needs to think that through. Whether speech is protected is not dependent upon its content.

Further steps: Commit to regaining intellectual diversity among the faculty and administrators. Cashier the wasteful DEI bureaucrats who enforce the monoculture and police speech and thought. Eliminate all mandatory requirements for signed DEI statements and reestablish fair hiring procedures to ensure long-term intellectual diversity within and across departments and programs. Institute annual mandatory teaching modules that instruct everyone on campus about the history of free expression and the value of civil discourse and tolerance on campus.

As journalist and founder of the Free Press Bari Weiss observed in her November 10 Barbara K. Olson Memorial Lecture before the Federalist Society, “The proliferation of antisemitism, as always, is a symptom. When antisemitism moves from the shameful fringe into the public square, it is not about Jews. It is never about Jews. It is about everyone else. It is about the surrounding society or the culture or the country. It is an early warning system—a sign that the society itself is breaking down. That it is dying.”

The disappearance of intellectual diversity among faculty and administrators and the rise of the thought and speech police is a disease rampant on far too many college campuses, particularly the elite ones. We can only hope that the regime change at Penn will also be a harbinger of a thorough change of campus culture, there and elsewhere.

This piece appeared on Forbes on December 14, 2023.

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Unfortunately, that is a likely outcome. Before she resigned, University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill said the university’s policies needed to be “clarified and evaluated.” A member of Penn’s Open Expression Committee has argued we need to restrict speech to fight antisemitism. The University of Michigan has announced a new institute to address antisemitism that is couched in the language of diversity, equity and, inclusion (DEI) – an ideology that fuels both antisemitism and speech suppression on campus. Harvard University’s response included expanding DEI resources as well.

Most American colleges and universities are dominated by monocultures that actively discourage and root out heterodox thinkers. Consider, for example, a recent survey that found only three per cent of Harvard University faculty are conservative, while 77 per cent are liberal or very liberal (progressive and leftist were not offered as choices). At the University of Pennsylvania, 99.7 per cent of faculty political donations went to Democrats last year. Should we give these majorities more power to suppress speech rather than less?

Academic institutions have abused individuals for daring to express unfashionable viewpoints. Biologist Carole Hooven was made miserable at Harvard for teaching that sex is binary. University of Chicago geophysicist Dorian Abbot was disinvited from giving a lecture at MIT because he had written about the importance of merit, fairness, and equality in the sciences. Penn Law Professor Amy Wax is still under investigation at Penn for questioning affirmative action. Do we want to enable institutions to justify their actions in these cases and repeat the behavior?

Universities should be places to engage in intellectual pursuits for their own sake, but many of the people who inhabit these institutions treat the intellectual life as a means to their ideological ends. They protest rather than listen, act rather than think. Whole departments and programs have been created or colonized by activist ideologues who think this way and exclude anyone who disagrees with them. They use power rather than persuasion to achieve their purposes whenever they can. Why would we further enable them?

And the problem is likely to get worse before it gets better, as the upcoming generation is even more intolerant than the current one. The process of breaking the ideological monopolies on our college campuses and replacing conformity with freedom and intolerance with openness is going to be generational. Reacting in this heated moment with the wrong policies will only delay vital reform – or ensure that it never comes to fruition at all. We should be working to improve and solidify policies that can help the heterodox to withstand the pressures they will inevitably face rather than giving the next generation the tools to create an “unmitigated and grinding despotism,” to quote Tacitus.

At the same time, there are ways to confront antisemitism (and other forms of hate) on our campuses. Institutions should have clear (but viewpoint neutral) policies concerning public safety, discrimination, and harassment. They should have fair rules regulating student groups, on-campus events, and protests. And it is essential that they enforce these policies. Too often, university leaders back down, as MIT did when it threatened protesters with suspension during an unauthorized demonstration, but then failed to follow through when they refused to comply.

Universities must also make substantial educational and personnel changes, instituting curricula that do not begin and end with critical theory while ensuring that hiring processes support rather than subvert intellectual diversity.

Antisemitism is repulsive and must be confronted. But it would only exacerbate the tragedy of American higher education to respond to the outrages we have witnessed by implementing policies and setting precedents that will further enable the very people who are responsible for debasing our institutions to do even more damage to them.

This post appeared on The Telegraph on December 13, 2023.

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In stunning irony, the leadership of so many of the nation’s top colleges and universities, initially unable to give a full-throated condemnation of a terrorist attack on Israeli civilians of monstrous savagery, miraculously discovered institutional neutrality and murmured effetely instead. In response to the backlash, they appeal to free expression, but their campuses have only what Penn donor and alumnus Clifford Asness has called “asymmetrical free speech where some have it and some don’t.”

While Penn Carey Law School’s eminent Professor Amy Wax is placed under investigation with serious threat of termination for alleged racial insensitivity, a professor who posted the logo of the military wing of Hamas on Facebook days after that terrorist organization’s horrific attack on Israeli civilians receives nothing more than an email.

Roger Waters, a notorious antisemite, is allowed to speak on Penn’s campus, but young women forced to share a locker room with a biological male are told, “Don’t talk to the media. You will regret it.”

At Harvard, the same President Claudine Gay who was instrumental in punishing gifted African American economist Roland Fryer, who dared to advance a data-driven challenge to the meme of racist policing, says pro-Hamas students will neither be punished nor sanctioned. Carole Hooven, who was canceled for stating a biological fact, might disagree with President Gay’s claim that Harvard “embraces a commitment to free expression.”

When the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) first formulated the principles of academic freedom in its 1915 Declaration, the primary concern was undue pressure on faculty from donors and trustees. Times have changed. Now the greatest threat to free expression comes from within the institutions themselves. Hiring aims at ideological self-replication, and heterodox thinkers who somehow sneak in are punished as heretics if they speak up.

No one is surprised that these schools are ideological silos tilted to the left, but the numbers are still shocking. Only 3% of faculty at Harvard identify as conservative. An astounding 99.7% of political donations made by Penn faculty in 2021-22 went to Democrats.

Our institutions of higher education need reform, and the people inside them have shown little interest in starting the process. Many are in complete denial that anything needs to change. The American people think differently: Only 36% (19% of Republicans) say they have confidence in American higher education.

There are some internal signs of hope, such as the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard, but the broader pattern among faculty and administrators is obstinate, self-righteous resistance. Normally, faculty complain that no one reads their work. Now that people are paying attention, the faculty senate tri-chairs at Penn complain that “freedom of thought, inquiry, and speech … are being threatened by individuals outside of the University who are surveilling both faculty and students in an effort to intimidate them and inhibit their academic freedom.” Where were these faculty leaders when dozens of their colleagues and students demanded sanctions against Amy Wax for daring to write that bourgeois values such as being “neighborly, civic-minded, and charitable” are drivers of success? They have been silent while Penn’s tribunal weighs terminating this distinguished professor, who has argued 15 cases before the Supreme Court and received Penn’s highest award for teaching excellence.

Unwilling to defend academic freedom when it mattered, the faculty senate speaks now only to insult its donors and alumni. “Let us be clear,” the tri-chairs write: “academic freedom is an essential component of a world-class university and is not a commodity that can be bought or sold by those who seek to use their pocketbooks to shape our mission.” What gratitude! Not to be outdone, the Penn chapter of the AAUP, also silent on matters of academic freedom in recent years, complains about “donors directly contacting academic programs that rely on them financially” and says trustees and donors “have attempted to abuse the power that comes with wealth.” Is Penn holding a competition to see who can chase away the most donors?

The disingenuous administrators and faculty who run our elite academic institutions have had their chance to govern autonomously. We see where they have led us. Now is a time for trustees, donors, and alumni to intervene and give these institutions the gift of reform they so urgently need.

This post originally appeared on RealClear Politics on November 17, 2023.

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The program appeared to be running smoothly until the most recent legislative session, when an important amendment was approved to one subsection of the law. Heretofore approved religious private colleges became ineligible for the program if they “require a faith statement from a secondary student seeking to enroll in a postsecondary course” or “base any part of the admission decision on a student’s race, creed, ethnicity, disability, gender, or sexual orientation or religious beliefs or affiliations.” The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty brought a lawsuit against the state of Minnesota on behalf of two families whose high school-age children wished to take dual enrollment courses at two Christian colleges, Crown College and University of Northwestern – St. Paul. According to the complaint, “during meetings of the Senate Committee on Education Policy, members of the committee stated clearly their intent to exclude religious schools from receiving public dollars.”

The amendment may have initially withstood a constitutional challenge had it been enacted before this decade’s two important free exercise of religion Supreme Court cases. Then, the state would have argued that a case from 2004 called Locke v. Davey should control. In Davey, the Court ruled that a Washington state law prohibiting the use of public scholarship money for “devotional” degree programs (where the matriculant becomes a minister) was constitutional. While noting that Washington’s legislature could have allowed scholarship recipients to use their aid to receive devotional degrees, the Court decided 7 to 2 that their refusal to do so did not violate Davey’s First Amendment rights.

The 2020s have been a different story. In Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, the Supreme Court took up a case brought by a parent who wished to use state scholarship money to attend a private, religious secondary school. The state law permitted parents to use the money for their child’s attendance at any school in the state, parochial, private, charter, or public. The Montana Supreme Court ruled against the constitutionality of the state law, deciding that it violated the “no-aid” clause of Montana’s state constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court decided in a 5-4 vote that the application of this state constitution clause triggered strict scrutiny review because it denied access to religious schools purely because of their religious nature.

The other relevant case is Carson v. Makin. There, a group of Maine parents challenged the state’s unusual scheme of funding public education. In Maine, there are 260 school administrative units, none of which is obligated to maintain a secondary school (at the time of litigation, 143 did not). Units without a secondary school may either decide to contract with another public school or approved private school for students residing in their unit, or pay the tuition at the public school or approved private school of the parent’s choice at which the student is accepted. The law allowed only nonsectarian private schools to be approved. The lower federal courts ruled in favor of the constitutionality of the state scheme, but the Supreme Court narrowly ruled (5-4 again) that the “nonsectarian” requirement violated the Free Exercise Clause.

These cases, along with the related Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer (which, like Makin and Espinoza was written by Chief Justice Roberts) make clear that governmental programs designed for the general public’s benefit cannot discriminate against religious institutions because of their religious character. That explains why the U.S. District Court issued a preliminary injunction on June 14 barring enforcement of the PSEO amendment. The plaintiffs don’t intend to stop there; Becket attorney Diana Thomson said, “The next step is for the court to strike down this ban for good.” Legislatures in other states with PSEO programs, like Washington, Ohio, and Florida, are now on alert.

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The department seeks to rescind these regulations because it argues that “they are not necessary to protect the First Amendment right to free speech and free exercise of religion; have created confusion among institutions; and prescribe an unduly burdensome role for the Department to investigate allegations regarding IHEs’ treatment of religious student organizations.”[1] These arguments are simply not true. In fact, there are multiple recent instances in which religious student groups at public higher education institutions were treated unfairly due to their stated missions.

Consider the 2021 lawsuit between the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and the student group Ratio Christi, an organization that seeks to advance, teach, and defend Christian beliefs. This group requested student activity funding of $1,500 from the university to invite Notre Dame University Professor Robert Audi to give a lecture on the rationality of believing in God. The university denied the group’s request, expressing that the school would not promote “speakers of a political or ideological nature,” even though student organizations with secular missions were regularly allowed to invite speakers without pushback from university administration. In response, Ratio Christi filed a lawsuit in Nebraska’s U.S. District Court, and in December 2022, two university officials agreed to settle the case, as well as change the university’s policies to ensure fair and viewpoint-neutral treatment of student groups.[2]

In 2020, the Students for Life group at the Georgia Institute of Technology filed a lawsuit against several officials, alleging that the group was discriminated against because it was denied a request for funds to invite pro-life activist Alveda King to an event. The lawsuit claimed that the student government association denied funding on account of Ms. King’s religious and pro-life views, a violation of the civil liberties guaranteed by the First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment. Later that same year, Georgia Tech officials agreed to a settlement with Students for Life and corrected the institution’s policies.[3]

Even though both lawsuits reached settlements and both institutions agreed to update their policies, these stories clearly demonstrate the necessity of the regulations that the Department of Education is proposing to rescind. All student organizations at both public and private colleges and universities should be afforded equal opportunities to advance their missions so long as their actions do not conflict with constitutional protections.

Furthermore, the Higher Education Act of 1965 requires religious liberty protections:

SEC. 112. [20 U.S.C. 1011a] PROTECTION OF STUDENT SPEECH AND ASSOCIATION RIGHTS. (a) PROTECTION OF RIGHTS.—(1) It is the sense of Congress that no student attending an institution of higher education on a full- or part-time basis should, on the basis of participation in protected speech or protected association, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination or official sanction under any education program, activity, or division of the institution directly or indirectly receiving financial assistance under this Act, whether or not such program, activity, or division is sponsored or officially sanctioned by the institution. (2) It is the sense of Congress that— (F) nothing in this paragraph shall be construed to modify, change, or infringe upon any constitutionally protected religious liberty, freedom, expression, or association.[4]

These stories, and others like them, along with existing statute, are reason enough for the Department of Education to continue to investigate allegations of unfair treatment of religious student organizations and, if necessary, to rescind full or partial grant funding until the institution corrects its policies.

[1] U.S. Department of Education, “Direct Grant Programs, State-Administered Formula Grant Programs Proposed Rule,” ED-2022-OPE-0157-0001, posted February 22, 2023, https://www.regulations.gov/document/ED-2022-OPE-0157-0001.

[2] Leah MarieAnn Klett, “Christian group wins lawsuit against university that denied funding of philosopher’s lecture on God,” The Christian Post, December 20, 2022, https://www.christianpost.com/news/christian-group-wins-discrimination-lawsuit-against-university.html.

[3] Michael Gryboski, “Pro-life students sue Georgia Tech over refusal to fund Alveda King event,” The Christian Post, April 3, 2020, https://www.christianpost.com/news/pro-life-students-sue-georgia-tech-over-refusal-to-fund-alveda-king-event.html.

[4] “Higher Education Act of 1965.” U.S. Government Publishing Office. Accessed March 23, 2023. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-765/pdf/COMPS-765.pdf.

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“Who is the next Billy Graham? It is millions of contagious Christians who are trained, equipped, and deployed,” said Strobel. “We have a vision to fulfill this mission as quickly as possible.”

The Lee Strobel Center for Evangelism and Applied Apologetics will offer accredited courses on the undergraduate and graduate levels—all designed to help churches, ministries, and individual Christians share and defend their faith naturally and effectively.

CCU is the preeminent interdenominational Christian university in the Rocky Mountain region, with an online impact that spans the globe. “We stand within the great tradition of Christian universities who are serious about faith and the gospel, and we’re thrilled to have Lee Strobel join our team,” said CCU President Don Sweeting. “Strobel’s background as a former atheist, portrayed in the book and film The Case for Christ, gives him valuable insight into how to reach people who are far from God.”

Described in the Washington Post as “one of the evangelical community’s most popular apologists,” Strobel has authored more than forty books and curricula that have sold nearly 14 million copies, including The Case for Faith, The Case for a Creator, and The Case for Miracles. The Yale-trained former legal editor of the Chicago Tribune also has been a teaching pastor at three of the largest and most evangelistic churches in the country.

The Center’s executive director is Strobel’s long-time ministry associate Mark Mittelberg, the best-selling author of such books as Confident Faith, The Reason Why Faith Makes Sense, and The Questions Christians Hope No One Will Ask (With Answers).

Through their Becoming a Contagious Christian training course, Strobel and Mittelberg have already equipped nearly two million Christians worldwide in how to reach others with the gospel. They have also led the outreach and apologetics efforts of one of the largest and most outreach-oriented churches in America, and for three decades have innovated evangelism and apologetics conferences, training seminars, national simulcasts, and outreach events.

Strobel explained that the word apologetics comes from a Greek term used in the Bible for defending the faith—something, he added, that’s needed more than ever in our increasingly skeptical nation. “We’re focusing on what we’re calling ‘applied apologetics,’ which means we’re going to equip Christians who will be actively engaged in the marketplace of ideas—in local churches and communities, in the media, in the entertainment world, on the Internet, and throughout popular culture,” he said.

Strobel and Sweeting agreed that CCU is the perfect home for the new center. Explained Sweeting: “It is a Strategic Priority of Colorado Christian University to share the love of Christ on campus and around the world, and to teach our students to be evangelists. The Strobel Center at CCU is an incredible vehicle to enable us to make new strides to achieve these priorities.”

One of the Center’s unique objectives is to train and certify evangelism directors for local churches, who will serve full-time, part-time or on a volunteer basis in partnership with the senior pastor in order to mobilize the church to reach their community for Christ.

“We believe in the power of leadership,” Mittelberg said. “The senior pastor can’t do everything himself. We want to equip, mentor, and deploy leaders who will work creatively and effectively under the direction of the senior pastor to reach everyone with the gospel.”

To facilitate that training, the Center’s courses will be offered through CCU Online so that people from all backgrounds and stages of life can study from the convenience of their own home. “The Center will feature the latest and most creative technology, the most current and proven content, and live interaction with passionate and credentialed educators,” Strobel said.

Other unique features of the Center include organizing a Think Tank, composed of leading Christian scholars, innovators, and practitioners, to collaborate on fresh ways of explaining and spreading the gospel, as well as hosting national conferences to share best practices and encourage churches in saturating their communities with the Christian message.

Founded in 1914, Colorado Christian University provides Christ-centered higher education that transforms students to impact the world with grace and truth. Located in Lakewood, Colorado, a suburb of Denver, CCU is consistently ranked in the top 2 percent of colleges nationwide for its core curriculum by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

CCU offers undergraduate and graduate degrees for traditional and adult students through its College of Undergraduate Studies and College of Adult and Graduate Studies. More than 8,000 students attend the University on the main campus, in regional centers throughout Colorado, and online. The Strobel Center’s courses are expected to begin Fall 2020.

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The proposed amendments erase the exemption that previously allowed religious schools to operate in accordance with their faith-based standards. They would require schools that accept Cal Grant money to compromise their religious principles to accommodate overly broad, government-enforced nondiscrimination regulations.  These schools would be stripped of a wide range of abilities, including the ability to enforce sexual conduct standards in housing and restrooms and the ability to utilize employment practices and student admission policies pursuant to their religious beliefs.

The bill is generous enough to vaguely allow a few lucky religious schools, such as seminaries, to maintain their exemptions, but for most schools- no dice.

This proposal passed the First Amendment without so much as a second glance. The First Amendment of this country protects not only the belief but the exercise of religion, a right that cannot be denied to a man without denying his very nature for “the right to religious freedom has its foundation not in the subjective disposition of the person, but in his very nature.”

Rick Zbur, executive director of Equality California, justifies the bill by saying that prospective students have a right to know the discrimination regulations at a university. Publicizing these regulations will allow “individuals to protect themselves”. This demand for transparency in higher education is honorable, but misdirected.

Religious institutions don’t covertly disguise themselves in secular garb to attract and retain unsuspecting applicants. To do so would be to subvert their mission of clear and faithful teaching. My own college, Thomas Aquinas College, is completely transparent about its Catholic identity. This is immediately evident to anyone who so much as glances at our campus with its prominent mission-style chapel, or who peeks at the first page of our website, which is filled with generous amounts of Catholic terminology.   Any serious applicant must write an essay answering the prompt, “Thomas Aquinas College is a Catholic college, although one need not be a Catholic to attend. How do you understand the relation between the curriculum and the Catholic character of the College?”

The point is this: you’re not getting in without knowing what you’re getting yourself into.

If the California legislature truly wants to pursue transparency and accountability where it is most needed, it should look towards other, more pressing deficiencies. As ACTA has reported, many California colleges and universities, including the UC system, struggle under the burdens of administrative bloat, rising tuition costs, and in many cases, weak core curricula.  Rather than coming under legislative fire, California religious schools such as ACTA “A” schools Thomas Aquinas College and Saint Katherine College should be treated as models—they uphold the principles of transparency and academic rigor that the California legislature purports to support.

Every summer, ACTA is privileged to have several interns conduct research for the What Will They Learn? project. This is the second in a series of guest blogs written by our interns, who chose topics relevant to higher education. Margaret is a junior at Thomas Aquinas College. She is a working towards her degree in classical liberal arts. She is also founding president of the St. Thomas More Society, a campus chapter of Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

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