A scathing new report claims that the Biden administration’s Department of Education’s (ED) enforcement actions were focused at least 70 percent on Christian and career-based schools, even though they represent less than 10 percent of the students in the nation. This uncovers an unseen campaign that persisted over the administration’s term and can hardly be seen as impartial.
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American Principles Project director Jon Schweppe released the following statement on their website detailing the report:
For the last four years, Democrats have been busy weaponizing every part of the federal government to target their opponents. While major assaults from agencies like the Department of Justice have taken most of the headlines, we should not ignore similarly corrupt efforts in other agencies as well. As our report details, the Biden-Harris Department of Education has been engaged in a long-running scheme to punish Christian colleges that are ideologically opposed to the left’s agenda. The unfair targeting of these institutions has been egregious, and it needs to stop immediately.
Some of the key findings of the report have focused on two of the country’s largest Christian colleges, Grand Canyon University and Liberty University. According to the report, these colleges received record-level fines that toppled all other penalties combined from other schools over the past seven years, including the fines for the schools of Jerry Sandusky and Larry Nassar for their sexual crimes.
For context, Penn State and Michigan State were fined $2.4 million and $4.5 million, respectively, as a result of Sandusky’s and Nassar’s crimes. But when it came to the Christian school, Grand Canyon alone was charged $37.7 million for allegedly misleading students about the cost of their doctorate program. Furthermore, the report says that “the average fine against a Christian school for a Clery Act violation was $815,000, compared to $228,571 against public and private institutions.”
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“At least 12 Christian colleges have been the target of excessive penalties or banned from receiving federal student aid; by comparison, no Ivy League school has been the recipient of punitive action by the Office of Enforcement.”
GCU recently was able to win a legal battle against the ED, which tried to revoke its non-profit status after it was approved by not only the Arizona Board for Private Postsecondary Education, the State of Arizona, and the Higher Learning Commission, but also the IRS. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously in favor of the Christian university.
“The IRS clearly has the authority to grant us nonprofit status. There’s an objective set of criteria that they use to do that, and they did it. The ED has never not honored what the IRS has determined.”
In regards to the excessive fines, GCU President Brian Mueller was asked if he felt his college was being targeted due to their religious beliefs.
“Well, they haven’t said it is, and I certainly haven’t said it is. And I hope that it’s not, but that the two largest Christian universities in the country are being investigated,” Mueller told Fox News Digital, referring to an ED probe into Liberty University in Virginia. “And so is that [a] coincidence? I don’t know.”
For many, it is not a coincidence and settles even worse against the backdrop of the events that unfolded over the past year. The antisemitic riots in college campuses have uncovered systematic liberal agendas, troubling financial ties to foreign countries and terrorist groups, and a clear bias in our justice system. We saw American flags being burned and replaced with foreign ones, students being harassed and bullied based on their nationality, schools teaching extremist agendas, and colleges accepting — even illegally — excessive funding from anti-American groups. Yet not one was brought to court or investigated by Biden’s administration.
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President-elect Donald Trump has been a faithful advocate for Christian education and school choice. He has vowed to abolish the Department of Education entirely when he takes office in January. This would presumably put the power back within the states to oversee their own education systems, but it leaves many unanswered questions, such as who would oversee the national student loan program. Some are also concerned about what it would mean for the states to have ultimate control. In the blue states, will guard rails be removed for the far left? We have seen the way that they attack the fundamentals of family when given the opportunity unrestrained. How can we ensure that Christians and conservative families everywhere will be protected?
At the same time, this report shows us that, once again, our system has been weaponized and used to campaign for political agendas. This skewed justice system not only failed to act when necessary to protect the innocent and uphold the integrity of our education system, but it unfairly targeted ideological opponents based on how they voted. Put these marks in the file of an expensive and inefficient system to begin with, and it’s hard to defend.
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President Donald Trump has a long to-do list when he takes office in January. Being the mover and shaker that he is, he has already started now. One thing we can expect is change and if anyone is equipped to find creative, efficient solutions for these problems, Trump has proven to be the man for the job.
