The story has leaked out already, but WORLD put it all together, with some depth. Student editors and reporters at Liberty’s student newspaper told their tale of administration bullying and Trumpish power-grabs. I’m sorry to say that such administrative antics are not unusual for student newspapers in evangelical higher education.

If you haven’t seen WORLD‘s story yet, it’s worth your time. Liberty’s hatchet man was Bruce Kirk. Kirk upbraided the student editors for trying to act like real journalists. After students tried to publish news of the controversial Red-Letter Revival last year, Kirk warned them that the student newspaper ought only to make the university look good. According to WORLD, Kirk told the students,

in the real world, which this isn’t, let’s just be honest, right? … You will be beholden to an organization, to a company. … That is just part of life. And it’s part of life for all of us by the way. Put journalism aside for a second. Do I get to do everything that I want to do or does Jerry dictate what I get to do? … Somebody else decides what you do and what you don’t say or do.

When student editor Erin Covey asked a question, Kirk tried hard to shut her down. Liberty University, Kirk told her, is not all that different from any other “family business.” Kirk went on,

it’s a family business, it is. I mean, Jerry Falwell and his dad Jerry before him and that’s how this university was founded, right? It wasn’t founded by somebody else. It was founded by the Falwells. . . . It’s their paper. They can do what they want. … If things aren’t followed, they’ll get stricter.

And get stricter they did. According to WORLD, student editors soon found themselves out of a job.

As SAGLRROILYBYGTH are aware, I don’t have a dog in this fight. I’m no evangelical myself, nor did I attend an evangelical college. As I found in the research for my recent book, however, the recent goings-on at Liberty are not very far from the traditional norm. As I’ve pointed out in the book and in these pages, censorship has always been part and parcel of the student and faculty experience at evangelical institutions.

It might not be polite to point out, but I think it’s true: speaking historically, there can’t be any sort of free speech crisis at evangelical colleges. I hate to quote myself, but this is how I put it earlier, and I stand by it:

Evangelical colleges that restrict speech these days don’t face a crisis. They fulfill a promise.