Hate Is Coming to a Campus near You: Meet the Evangelical Bigot Helping Trump Deregulate America’s Colleges

By Nico Lang
Salon
February 24, 2017

http://www.salon.com/2017/02/22/hate-is-coming-to-a-campus-near-you-meet-the-evangelical-bigot-helping-trump-deregulate-americas-colleges/

Jerry Falwell, Jr. (Credit: Getty/John Moore)

In her first weeks as secretary of the Department of Education, Betsy DeVos faced an extraordinary amount of scrutiny — both for her family’s history of supporting homophobic legislation and her lack of qualifications. A group of students attempted to block DeVos from entering a Washington middle school shortly after her confirmation.

But DeVos, a charter school advocate with a history of donating to anti-gay causes, isn’t the only education appointee that should worry LGBT people, as well as just about everyone else who wants safe, affirming education for America’s youth. Liberty University’s president, Jerry Falwell Jr., who has been tapped by the Trump administration to lead a task force on reforming higher ed, is a nightmare waiting to happen. His appointment — to an undisclosed advisory position — will put at risk every student across the U.S. already vulnerable to harm. With DeVos and Falwell at the helm, all children will be left behind.

Although Falwell has been unavailable for comment since his role in the administration was announced, a spokesman for the evangelical campus founded by his late father, Jerry, spoke on his behalf. The Liberty representative told NBC News that the right-wing leader’s goal will be to clean up the “overregulation and micromanagement” of U.S. colleges. How does Falwell Jr. plan to do that? By gutting sexual assault response programs at universities.

“Falwell . . . wants to cut federal rules on investigating and reporting sexual assault under Title IX, the federal law that bars sexual discrimination in education,” Religion News has reported. “The Liberty University head believes on-campus sexual assault investigations are best left to police.”

In 2011 the administration of President Barack Obama issued a “Dear Colleague” letter to universities introducing new regulations under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 to encourage universities to take measures to prevent on-campus sexual assaults. Whereas campus rape cases can often drag on months without resolution, the letter advised colleges that most incidents should be fully investigated and resolved within 60 days. Rather than basing decisions on a “clear and convincing evidence,” the guidance put forward a standard for judging cases: a “preponderance of the evidence.”

During her confirmation hearing, DeVos dodged a question about whether she would uphold those changes, arguing that commenting on the subject would be “premature,” and Falwell’s background on sexual assault is troubling.

Liberty University hired Ian McCaw, the former athletic director for Baylor University, in the midst of an ongoing rape scandal at his former college. Jasmin Hernandez, a student at the university, claimed McCaw knew that one of his star athletes, Tevin Elliott, had a history of sexually assaulting women and ignored his record. Hernandez further alleged that after not being made accountable for his prior actions, the football player went on to rape her. In a press release, Falwell Jr. personally praised the hiring of McCaw, saying that his example “fits perfectly with where we see our sports program going.”

If it surprises you that Falwell Jr. would applaud someone accused of covering up sexual abuse, know that the Liberty University president also once told CNN’s Erin Burnett that he would vote for a presidential candidate found guilty of rape. When asked about accusations from more than 10 women that Trump, then a White House hopeful, had groped them without consent, Falwell Jr. said, “We’re not electing a pastor. We’re electing a president.”

But if you’re looking for an indication of how Falwell Jr., who was first offered the secretary position before turning it down, would advise the Department of Education, his university’s anti-LGBT history offers a sterling example.

Falwell’s father, famously known as the face of the Moral Majority movement in the 1980s, created the nonprofit, Christian institution in 1971 to uphold his far-right conservative values. Liberty University, based in Lynchburg, Virginia, and founded in 1971, espouses Creationism. Kevin Roose, who spent a semester undercover at Liberty, wrote in New York magazine that prior to the elder Falwell’s death in 2007, he had instructed members of the student body that should the culture at Liberty ever become liberal, they “should return to campus and burn it down.”

As Roose claimed, Liberty University’s student body has become increasingly progressive in recent years, but the college has not. The Baptist university’s honor code strictly forbids “homosexual conduct or the encouragement or advocacy of any form of sexual behavior that would undermine the Christian identity or faith mission of the University.” That policy boils down to a simple mandate: You can be gay at Liberty but can’t act on it.