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Silence the Dissent
As we reported earlier this week, the federal government has sued North Carolina, threatening to pull funding. The actions of the federal government put approximately $1.4 billion dollars in jeopardy, and that's just for the universities. In addition, $800 million dollars for students, and all of the funding for elementary, middle, and high schools state-wide stands at risk if the U.S. departments of Justice and Education are allowed to get away with rewriting laws that only Congress is allowed to adjust.
ADF Senior Counsel Jeremy Tedesco had this to say:
"The administration shouldn’t condition the ability of women to receive an education on their willingness to shower with members of the opposite sex. On behalf of North Carolina students and families—and by extension all students and families across the nation affected by the DOJ’s and DOE’s overreach—we have filed suit to stop both agencies from bullying schools and universities. The agencies must stop using falsehoods about what federal law requires to threaten student access to educational opportunities and financial assistance."
Here are two points from Tedesco worth expanding on: First, he notes that ADF filed suit on behalf of North Carolina students and families. In light of that, we should listen to what students have to say:
The second point comes from the last sentence, where Tedesco mentions agencies threatening student access and financial assistance. We'll pull in some help from The Federalist, where David Harsanyi wrote all about how the federal government is comparing the North Carolina issue to the civil rights fight:
"Likening a spat over biologically segregated boy/girl bathrooms to the genuine, violent, systematic, state-sponsored, society-wide bigotry that took place in this country for a century is both intellectually and morally corrupt. It’s not all a continuum. Yet this administration peddles these kinds of risible comparisons in the cause of self-aggrandizement all the time. Hans Fiene has coined it Selma envy."
You see, making a bad comparison to something nobody wishes to defend amounts to intellectual bullying. After all, everybody agrees that systemic oppression, particularly the sort that happened with Jim Crow laws, was evil. So if you can rhetorically link that plain evil to ordinary, common-sense laws today, people will feel no choice but to oppose them. Nobody wants to align themselves with the Klan.
And so, when the federal government employs this sort of rhetoric, it appears that the government only wants to silence dissenters, no matter how reasonable.
Christian Colleges Should Be Free to Remain Christian
Somehow, that headline might be considered contentious.
Over at Public Discourse, Adam J. MacLeod points to the difference between Vanderbilt University and Gordon College, two schools with differing viewpoints on the topic of "discrimination" and "religious student groups."
Vanderbilt famously decided that "Christian student groups that hold traditional Christian religious views are not welcome on campus. They will no longer be recognized as valid student organizations."
But Vanderbilt has that right. They are legally allowed to make decisions about which groups they wish to encourage on campus; they aren't a public institution, after all.
And so should Gordon College have the same rights. Namely, the school should be allowed to be differently excellent.
"The mission of Gordon College is quite different from the anti-Christian commitments of Vanderbilt University. As all Gordon College alumni of my generation remember by heart, 'Gordon College strives to graduate men and women distinguished by intellectual maturity and Christian character, committed to a lifestyle of servanthood and prepared for leadership roles in their homes, workplaces, churches and communities.' The statement has been amended slightly over the years, but remains the same in substance."
Our society should have room for both sorts of schools, if we are actually committed to any sort of diversity.
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