All posts tagged Liberty University

I Love You but You Didn’t Do the Reading

Take a break from the eggnog and read about some of the big doings from around the interwebs this week:

Petition Condition! All of a sudden we see a burst of culture-war petitions. Which is your favorite?

Wow: evangelical flagship magazine Christianity Today calls for Trump’s removal from office.

The typical CT approach is to stay above the fray and allow Christians with different political convictions to make their arguments in the public square, to encourage all to pursue justice according to their convictions and treat their political opposition as charitably as possible. . . . But the facts in this instance are unambiguous: The president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents. That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.

  • From the ILYBYGTH files: How have other evangelical magazines weighed in on controversial issues? An example from 1957.

earnestine ritterHow do evangelical women make their mark? By falling into safe “types,” at R&P.

The Preacher . . . the Homemaker . . . the Talent . . . The Counselor . . . the Beauty.

Not funny in real life: Why teachers need to learn students’ names, at Chalkbeat.

Texas public school agrees to take down a creationist banner, but they ain’t happy about it. At KSAT.

“Somerset ISD is a place that, well, unabashedly, we keep Christ in Christmas. But this display had been here since the first day of the school year and we didn’t have a single complaint so we’re kind of shocked.”

texas school creationism

Separation of what and what?

Boris, Donald, and the rise of conservative populism, at AC.

The underlying phenomenon of all this is that the meritocratic elites of the West unleashed a political wildfire when they sought to move their nations in directions that large numbers of their citizens didn’t want to go—towards globalism, open borders, anti-nationalism, deindustrialization, anti-religion, and profound transformations in societal mores.

Too soon. Talk-radio guy fired for joking about a “nice school shooting” to distract us from impeachment. At CNN.

Can Jerry Falwell Jr. pull it off? Can big-time football make Liberty U seem like a real university? At the Ringer.

“We talk politics for a minute,” [Falwell] says, “and [Trump] asks about Becki”—Falwell’s wife—“and he says he’s glad she and Melania are becoming friends.” And then, Falwell remembers, after a few minutes of small talk, Trump had a question:

“So, how’s the football team looking?”

Getting to be that time of year: Chalkbeat offers its top-ten list—top ten ed stories of the decade.

Whom do teachers turn to for help? Other teachers. Even the technophiles have noticed.

When it comes to selecting resources for their classrooms, 81% of teachers rate other teachers as their most trusted source of information about what works. . . . Far more than principals (28%) or district staff (34%), more than review websites (39%), and more than evidence-based reports (18%).

Who are the Black Hebrew Israelites behind NJ’s shooting spree? A report from behind bars at the Tablet.

Horribly embarrassing the rabbis and families of Jewish prisoners who could visit on these holidays, the Israelites would use these opportunities to aggressively claim the core tenet of their belief: That Jews as we know them are not Jews at all, and that the only real Jews are, of course, the Black Hebrew Israelites themselves.

At The Atlantic, Andrew Ferguson says historians should avoid petitions like the one they signed to impeach Trump.

Scrolling through the endless list of obscure signatories from backwater colleges scattered between the coasts, I could just imagine them running home that evening to humblebrag to their wives or husbands, girlfriends or boyfriends: “Yeah, me and Bob Caro, we just figure enough is enough—impeach the bastard!”

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by Adam Laats on December 23, 2019  •  Permalink
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Posted by Adam Laats on December 23, 2019

https://iloveyoubutyouregoingtohell.org/2019/12/23/i-love-you-but-you-didnt-do-the-reading-152/

Trump-ing Academic Life

A Miss USA, a bachelor, a gun-toter, a filmmaker, and a MAGA youtuber, all clumped together on a college campus to promote “Judeo-Christian values.” What could go wrong? If it were a reality show, I’d watch it. But it’s not. Instead, this group of culture-war B-listers is the first cohort of Liberty University’s Falkirk Center Fellows. These Trumpish all-stars promise/threaten to upend a long tradition of alternative academic institution-building in conservative evangelical higher ed.

As SAGLRROILYBYGTH are well aware, we’ve been following developments at Liberty’s new Falkirk Center with a lot of interest. The founders—Jerry Falwell Jr. and Turning Point’s Charlie Kirk—warned us that they plan to put “Judeo-Christian values” back in the center of American political life via an “aggressive social media campaign.” Given the history of ambitious academic centers at conservative evangelical universities, there’s not much of a chance the Falkirkers will achieve their goals. Given the recently announced line-up of founding Falkirk Fellows, I’m starting to think that they might, in fact, have a totally different goal in mind. Namely, they might want to trash the entire evangelical academic tradition, or at least not mind if they do.

As I argued in Fundamentalist U, since the 1920s conservative evangelical colleges, institutes, and universities faced a formidable task. They had to create an entirely separate academic system of prestige, one that rewarded scholars outside of mainstream academic channels. As part of their effort to do so, many universities poured scarce resources into the painstaking effort to build their own independent network of academic prestige, one that did not rely on mainstream ideas. For example, institutions such as Wheaton College and Gordon College heaped honors on creationists such as Harry Rimmer. Authors such as Arthur Brown scrambled to compile impressive-sounding lists of academic “experts” who scorned mainstream science.

To be sure, these alternative academic “experts” often had extremely shallow credentials. When evangelical universities gave them honorary doctorates and other academic honors, however, they were signaling to the conservative evangelical community that their universities shared the religious and political values of their honored experts. The universities were creating, in essence, a world of academic prestige outside the entire system of mainstream academics.

The recent move by Liberty University seems as different from that kind of thinking as Trump is from Reagan. What does it take to earn a coveted spot as an inaugural fellow at the Falkirk Center? Let’s take a look:

Frantzve

Adding a little sparkle to academic life…

First, we have Erika Lane Frantzve, Miss USA 2012. Ms. Frantzve claims a “background” in political science and is dedicated to charity work. Next, there is Josh Allan Murray, best known from his appearance on The Bachelorette. These days, in spite of the quick break-ups of his TV nuptials, Mr. Murray is apparently “bouncing back better than ever.” Third comes Antonia Okafor Cover, who works to get more guns on college campuses. She claims to have been told she should not feel free to speak her mind, but as she puts it, “I didn’t listen.” Another fellow will be David J. Harris, Jr., a vlogger and Trump enthusiast who preaches the dangers of the “crazed left.” Last but not least is Jaco Booyens, filmmaker and opponent of sex trafficking.

I don’t mean to be a campus snob, but what kind of achievements can a group like this hope to achieve? To quote Charlie Kirk, how can this assemblage “‘play offense’ against efforts by liberals to water down Judeo-Christian values in the Bible and Constitution”?

The short and obvious answer is, they can’t. This is a group of second-rate conservative media presences, not a group of alternative academics. Unlike people like Harry Rimmer in an earlier generation, they have no coherent ideas to promote. They are not scientists frozen out of mainstream science, or theologians pushed out of mainstream institutions. Those kinds of non-mainstream intellectuals used to be the ones to win academic honors from the evangelical academy. This group looks decidedly different.

Even from within the alternative academic tradition of conservative evangelical schools, a tradition in which non-traditional intellectuals were often awarded traditional academic honors, this group of Falkirk Fellows looks remarkably intellectual weak. Instead of building an independent system of academic prestige as earlier evangelical colleges have done, the Falkirk Center seems to be merely leaping aboard the Trump Train to trash the entire idea of academic prestige.

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by Adam Laats on December 4, 2019  •  Permalink
Posted in Higher (Power) Education, In the News
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Posted by Adam Laats on December 4, 2019

https://iloveyoubutyouregoingtohell.org/2019/12/04/trump-ing-academic-life/

I Love You but You Didn’t Do the Reading

We’ve got snow up to our eyeballs up here, but the interwebs haven’t shut down yet. Here are some of the top ILYBYGTH-themed stories from the past holiday week:

NYT charters

Good schools are good schools…right?

Are charters the best hope for low-income urban students? At NYT.

Max Lyttle, director of instruction at Eagle Academy Public Charter School in Washington, D.C., argued that pitting schools against one another misses the point.

“It shouldn’t be about what’s better: charter schools or neighborhood schools,” he said. “It should be about what schools will help our children succeed.”

At the school’s campus in southeast Washington, where more than 90 percent of students are black, Eagle Academy seeks to provide the same resources that white, affluent children have: a swimming pool, a chef who serves fruits and vegetables and a “sensory room” modeled on private medical facilities where students can calm down. The school was recognized this year for its improvements on standardized test scores.

Burge rns anointed by godRyan Burge asks: How many Americans believe Trump was “anointed by God?” At RNS.

White Protestants’ belief in Trump’s anointing tracks with church attendance. Among those who attend less often than once a month, just 1 in 10 thinks that Trump was anointed. Of those who attend church multiple times a week, 4 in 10 agree that Trump was anointed by God.

Views of the Bible also affect how Americans responded. Among those who consider the Bible inspired by God, just 11% believe Trump was anointed, while those who believe the Bible to be the literal word of God are more than three times as likely to think so.

Liberty University sets up a new academic center, at WE.

The Falkirk Center for Faith and Liberty, a combination of their names [Jerry Falwell Jr. and Charlie Kirk], will “play offense” against efforts by liberals to water down Judeo-Christian values in the Bible and Constitution in their bid to build support for big government, said Kirk. . . . He said that the center hopes to answer a question he gets often, “was Jesus Christ a socialist?”

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by Adam Laats on December 2, 2019  •  Permalink
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Posted by Adam Laats on December 2, 2019

https://iloveyoubutyouregoingtohell.org/2019/12/02/i-love-you-but-you-didnt-do-the-reading-149/

Fizzle Alert: New Campus Center Will Try to Prove that Jesus Was Not a Socialist

The history is not particularly encouraging. Nevertheless, Liberty University plans to open a new academic center, one devoted to promoting Judeo-Christian values in American society. How do we know it won’t work? Three reasons, plus one counter-point.

Here’s what we know: Liberty University recently announced its new Falkirk Center. The name comes from a combo of Jerry Falwell Jr—Liberty’s president—and Charlie Kirk, leader of Turning Point USA. The goal of the center will be to blitz social media with traditional Christian messages. As Falwell and Kirk described,

Said Kirk, “We’re in a culture battle right now where you have to fight and play offense, and part of this effort is to try and play offense against the secular Left.”

Falwell added, “As attacks on traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs grow in frequency and intensity, the need has never been greater for a national revival of our foundational principles throughout our society and institutions in America.”

The center will use an aggressive social media campaign to push back against what Kirk described as the Left’s effort to “try to convert young Christians into socialism and to intentionally misrepresent the gospel and the teachings of the Bible to try to convert young people to be further on the left.”

Will it work? No.

First of all, there are a few big established conservative think-tanks that don’t leave much room for a new one. Why would anyone go to work at the Falkirk Center when they could go the Heritage Foundation instead?

Second, the name itself spells doom. Generally, any academic center or think-tank needs a clear and unified purpose. Often, that takes the form of a charismatic leader. In this case, trying to balance the big egos of both Falwell and Kirk will mean that neither of them gives the center his full attention and support.

Third, as I found in the research for Fundamentalist U, when conservative evangelicals have tried to establish alternative academic centers in the past they haven’t had a lot of success. Consider the ill-starred National Freedom Education Center (NFEC). It was an organization based at The King’s College in New York (now in New York City).

national freedom education center letterhead

They had enough money for letterhead, but that’s about it…

One of the NFEC’s goals was to spread “American Studies” programs on evangelical campuses. As their promo materials put it,

What philosophy shall give direction to the material world we are developing?  Shall the long-felt influence of the Christian ethic be brought to bear on current history?  Dare we succumb to the seemingly plausible suggestions that in our time government-over-man is preferable to America’s long proven concept of man-over government?

Can we survive as a people, even with our unparalleled abundance of things, if our thinking excludes our traditionally motivating intangibles . . . . reverence for God, total human concern for the individual, an abiding dedication to preservation of our Constitution and a cherishing regard for personal Freedom? [sic]

Did it work? Nuh-uh. A few institutions, such as Azusa Pacific, signed up. They received a few hundred dollars and some books for their libraries. Other schools blanched. Gordon College in Massachusetts, for example, rejected the overtures of the NFEC. The faculty at Gordon did not want to turn their conservative religious school into merely a conservative political school.

There’s no doubt, however, that the NFEC would have had more luck if it had had deeper pockets. And that’s where the Falkirk Center might get its glimmer of hope. Liberty University has bajillions of dollars to spend from its online empire. Could that $$$ make a difference? Maybe.

After all, the Falkirk Center is NOT trying to build academic prestige. That takes time, vision, and patience. It is only trying to mount an “aggressive social media campaign,” which is quick, dirty, and easy. It seems at least possible that the Falkirk Center might splash out money on a blitz of popular media, and that the blitz might reinforce already-existing stereotypes. It COULD become, even, a new sort of academic center, one that doesn’t care much about traditional academics but has a big social-media footprint.

I don’t think it will happen, because President Falwell has always been more invested in football than academics, but it seems at least possible that the Falkirk Center might take advantage of a fat wallet to do more than talk about making a difference. I’m not going to worry too much about it, yet.

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by Adam Laats on December 1, 2019  •  Permalink
Posted in Higher (Power) Education, In the News
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Posted by Adam Laats on December 1, 2019

https://iloveyoubutyouregoingtohell.org/2019/12/01/fizzle-alert-new-campus-center-will-try-to-prove-that-jesus-was-not-a-socialist/

Can Big-Time Sports Do It Again?

[Editor’s Note: Well, they went down in flames, but Liberty football gave it a good go yesterday against Brigham Young University. As commentators scrambled to explain the cultural significance of this gridiron contest, I thought it might be worth rerunning this piece from last year. As Liberty U climbs the peaks of college respectability, it will find itself paying a higher and higher price for its stubborn refusal to accept other parts mainstream higher-ed normalcy.  We’ve seen that Liberty faces some unique pressure in its quest to retain top faculty. Will its dream to become the “Notre Dame” of the evangelical world lead it to a different sort of conformist pressure?] liberty v byu

I never thought I’d see it, but here it is. Following Brigham Young University’s tentative opening to LGBTQ+ students and issues, could the same spark change things in evangelical higher ed? After all, schools like Liberty have long yearned to follow the BYU path in one crucial area.

BYU LGBTQ

Here’s what we know: Liberty University in particular has always jonesed for recognition as a leading university, and sports has always been one of its preferred qualifications. As President Pierre Guillermin put it awkwardly in 1982, Liberty wanted to be “the Notre Dame of the Christian world athletically and the Harvard of the Christian world academically.”

Of course, the Catholic leaders of Notre Dame might say that they already ARE the Notre Dame of the Christian world athletically, but let’s move on. The central point is that leaders of evangelical higher education have always wanted recognition as more than just niche colleges; they have always wanted to reclaim their role as the leaders of American higher education overall.

When Liberty brilliantly and ruthlessly capitalized on the possibilities of online education, current president Jerry Falwell Jr. did not invest the money back into Liberty’s online program. No, Falwell tried to make the old Liberty dream come true. He poured money into traditional campus amenities, especially including Liberty’s athletic program.

This year, the investment paid off. Liberty beat top-ranked Baylor in football, triggering a joyous campus-wide freak-out. Which leads us to our question: Will the dream of big-time sports force Liberty to open itself to friendlier LGBTQ+ policies?

After all, that’s what seems to be happening at Brigham Young. As Chronicle of Higher Ed reports this morning, BYU’s recent tentative opening to LGBTQ+ students was sparked by BYU’s lust for athletic recognition.

As CHE recounts,

In 2016, the Big 12 Conference announced it was officially considering expansion. BYU’s administrators and athletic director jumped at the chance to join. But publicly vying to join the conference brought on national criticism of the university, which observers said did not uphold the NCAA’s stated support of inclusivity because of its treatment of LGBTQ students.

After the university’s effort to join the Big 12 failed, Tom Holmoe, the athletic director, suggested that pushback from LGBTQ advocate groups stood in its way. In response, BYU requested an invitation to the NCAA’s annual Common Ground conference, an effort begun in 2014 to provide a place where leaders and students at religious institutions can talk about LGBTQ issues and “begin exploring how to bridge these gaps and find common ground.”

Might Liberty follow a similar path?

Generations of Christian pleading for equality and recognition have scored only minor victories. As I noted in my recent book and in these pages, administrators at evangelical colleges—even the more liberal schools—are under intense pressure not to change their rules about same-sex issues.

Perhaps it will take a different sort of pressure from a different direction to really change things in evangelical higher education.

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by Adam Laats on November 10, 2019  •  Permalink
Posted in Higher (Power) Education, Teaching Sex and Sexuality
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Posted by Adam Laats on November 10, 2019

https://iloveyoubutyouregoingtohell.org/2019/11/10/can-big-time-sports-do-it-again-2/

What Liberty’s Billions Can’t Buy

I thought it would come from the sports side. But Karen Swallow Prior’s recent decision to leave Liberty University makes me wonder if academics might do the trick instead.

Karen Swallow Prior

It’s not me, it’s you.

First, a little background: SAGLRROILYBYGTH know the unique story of Liberty’s billions. After the school’s online programs became incredibly popular, current President Jerry Falwell Jr. invested in brick-and-mortar campus improvements, football, and basketball.

When I conducted research at Liberty for Fundamentalist U, I was agog at the lavish accoutrements. It wasn’t only the all-year snowboarding hill. It wasn’t only the fact that Liberty had purchased a nearby mountain on which to slap its logo. It was also the splendid archive facilities and professional archive staff.

LU sign on mountain

Go tell it on the mountain…

Liberty has also managed to hold on to star professors such Karen Swallow Prior, until now. Professor Prior just announced she is heading to Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Why?

As she told a local newspaper,

“With the rise of Trump, I felt a lot of the values that shaped and formed me were being betrayed by many within evangelicalism. . . . I know a lot of people who voted for Trump and I understand why they did and I get that, but for me it was too much of a compromise.”

Prior said her criticism of Trump has caused tensions on Liberty’s campus and has contributed to her decision to leave the school.

If Liberty can’t hold on to academic talent, it will have squandered its billions. Though it sometimes might not feel like it, students and their families care about a top-notch academic college experience. Even top-ranked sports teams and flashy campus amenities won’t attract students if those students feel like a university is not a “real” college.

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by Adam Laats on November 2, 2019  •  Permalink
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Posted by Adam Laats on November 2, 2019

https://iloveyoubutyouregoingtohell.org/2019/11/02/what-libertys-billions-cant-buy/

I Love You but You Didn’t Do the Reading

Another big news week here at the offices of ILYBYGTH International! Here are a few of the biggest headlines:

Has public education remained the same for a century? Not really, at WaPo.

The subjects that students studied, the way the day was organized, the size of classes, the kinds of supports young people received — these essential aspects of education were all different.

Devos and trumpQueen Betsy held in contempt of court in student-loan case. At NPR.

the department “erroneously” sent messages to more than 16,000 borrowers to pay up. Some did so voluntarily. Others had their wages garnished or tax refunds seized by the government. Ten different third-party contractors were involved in collecting the loans, and the judge’s opinion notes that the Education Department didn’t do much to make sure they followed the orders, beyond sending a few emails.

It’s rare for a judge to find a Cabinet secretary in contempt of court.

Could Latinx evangelicals decide the 2020 election? At RNS.

“We’re pro-life. We want criminal justice reform. We want educational equity. We want a healthy economy,” [President of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition Gabriel Salguero] told Religion News Service this week, noting that members of the faith group also feel strongly about immigration and foreign policy. “Because we’re not one-issue voters, people think if they come to us with talking points they’re gonna get us — no.”

What is life like at an evangelical college? One alum shares her memories at RA.

“Kind of liberal, isn’t it?” sneered a girl at my church youth group, who would be attending the ultra-conservative Master’s College.

“I don’t think so?” I said, recalling that Westmont didn’t allow drinking, smoking, or overnight guests of the opposite sex. But I secretly wanted her to be right. I hoped that Westmont would help me deal with the panic I continually felt reading the Bible, that it would help me figure out how to be a Democrat, a feminist, and a Baptist.

Top historian reviews new book about evangelicals, at CT.

As for white evangelicals’ enthusiastic embrace of the Republican Party and their overwhelming support for Donald Trump, Kidd views these trends as unfortunate but—like the Scopes Trial of the 1920s—not necessarily representative of evangelicalism as a whole. . . .[but] If evangelical theology transcends racial and political lines in ways that most other religious movements in America can’t match, shouldn’t we see clearer evidence of our racial attitudes and political stances aligning with our theology?

Has America gone too far on school safety? At the Atlantic.

We have students who feel like they’re being treated like potential criminals instead of students. . . . We’ve kind of gone overboard. Not all threats are created equal.

The big Ed news: Senator Warren reveals her K-12 plan. Some highlights:

  • Quadruple federal Title I funding for schools in high-poverty neighborhoods. . . .
  • Fund the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act at the level the federal government originally promised . . .
  • End federal investment in charter school expansion, ban for-profit charter schools and ensure existing charter schools are subject to the same transparency and accountability requirements as traditional public school districts. . . .
  • Reinstate Obama-era protections for transgender students under federal law that were revoked by Trump and take other steps to protect LGBTQ students and faculty.
  • Invest federal dollars to raise teacher pay and strengthen the bargaining power of teacher unions.
  • Eliminate use of standardized test scores for high-stakes decisions. . . .
  • Cancel student breakfast and lunch debt and provide free and nutritious school meals.
  • Ban the storing and selling of student data.
  • Expand social-emotional learning.
  • Offer $100 billion in grants to transform 25,000 public schools into community schools, which provide family support and health and social services to students.

Sen. Warren follows it up with a visit to a Chicago teachers’ picket line. At CST.

“Be strong in the Chicago teachers strike … I know you are out there fighting for the future of our children. … Stay on the picket lines as long as you need to.”

Conservative critic Chester Finn on Warren’s ed plan, at EN.

it would reverse most of the major education reforms of recent decades, drive a stake through the heart of what’s left of bipartisan federal and state policy, and re-enshrine adult interests, especially those of the teachers unions, in place of children’s, while wasting immense sums of taxpayer dollars. (The total price tag is estimated at $800 billion.)

Can progressive Christians be kinder? At RNS.

I’m not advocating for us [progressive Christians] to ignore evil and to stop seeking justice wherever we go. But our posture must be one that seeks the well-being of all people, one that aims to lovingly persuade our brothers and sisters without embracing anger, bitterness and pride.

What does the economy need? Better storytellers, at WaPo.

“It’s important we don’t just talk about numbers, coefficients and rules, but stories that people can understand,” Lowe said. “Stories about how policies are contributing to economic welfare and the things that really matter to people.”

Teaching impeachment can put history teachers in a tight spot, at NYT.

“I think social studies teachers are hesitant to teach controversial topics, past and present, due to hyperpolarization or pushback from parents,” [31-year-old teacher Chris Dier] said. “Almost all of my students will be voting in the next election; they deserve teachers who do not shy away from current events because of our partisan climate.”

Joe Biden might not be able to bring Catholic voters to the Democrats anymore. At RNS.

burge catholicCan new leadership save struggling evangelical colleges? At CT.

Jobe [at Moody Bible Institute] sees his first job as having to “define reality.” That includes helping team members understand the institution’s identity and next steps needed to thrive. To rebuild confidence across the campus, he also attempts to engage with the basic needs of students and staff.

Will other evangelical colleges learn from the tragic lessons of Liberty U? At JGMC.

Reforming Liberty doesn’t mean compromising its mission. Nobody is demanding that Liberty become a Christian liberal arts school in the mold of Wheaton College or Hillsdale, or a carbon copy of a secular state school. In fact, Liberty is uniquely positioned as a popular university that could be a bona fide alternative to the overwhelmingly progressive status quo in academia.

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by Adam Laats on October 28, 2019  •  Permalink
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Posted by Adam Laats on October 28, 2019

https://iloveyoubutyouregoingtohell.org/2019/10/28/i-love-you-but-you-didnt-do-the-reading-144/

I Love You but You Didn’t Do the Reading

Greetings from beautiful Madison, Wisconsin! Even though the Badgers are 6-0, people are still fighting about schools n Jesus n stuff. Here are some of the top stories to catch our attention this past week:

Bazinga. Two Congresspeople complain that Liberty U breaks Queen Betsy’s free-speech rule. At RNS.

Despite Executive Order 13864, which directs the Department to ensure institutions promote free inquiry, you have failed to act in cases of suppression of ideas that involve the administration’s political allies, such as Liberty University. . . Given that Liberty’s violations are public and longstanding, we are left to conclude that the Department’s failure to act is deliberate and that it is only interested in enforcing free speech policies against institutions it deems unfriendly.

SCOTUS won’t be hearing a Bible-in-schools case. At RH.

Are things turning around at evangelical Gordon College? After making big cuts, the school now gets huge $75.5 MILLION donation, at CT.

  • This kind of big money might end up hurting more than it helps, here at ILYBYGTH.

Too much? Just right? Physics professor suspended at NC State, at CN&O.

Professor E. David Davis called on a female student who couldn’t answer a question and jokingly asked if she was dropped on her head as a baby by her mother. . . Davis called on another female student who was also unable to answer the question. His response, a student told ABC11, was “’Well, the women are useless today. So maybe I should ask a man.’”

Where can progressive Christians go? How about Evolving Faith 2019? At RNS.

The speaker list alone made that clear — a Christian who’s-who of black, brown, LGBTQ and female voices. At a time when many Christian conferences have come under fire for having primarily cis-gender, straight white men on stage, Evolving Faith featured only one: Pete Enns, who, during the “Evolving Faith & Bible/Theology” session, described his own journey toward becoming an “agnostic Christian.”

What can radical creationists give out on Halloween? How about $1,000,000 tracts from Answers in Genesis? At Ken Ham’s Blog.

AIG money treats

Want some candy? How about these tracts instead?

Kids love these, and it’s a fun way to share the gospel—something worth far more than a million dollars!—with children and their families.

Will more teachers vote for Sen. Warren because she was a teacher? EdWeek asks the question.

Teaching is one of those weird things where everybody thinks they understand it because everybody was a student at some point, but actually doing it is different,” [MA elementary school teacher Megan] DiScicio said. “I am really tired of having people making all of the decisions in education reform and education funding who just fundamentally don’t understand what we do every day.”

While one year in the classroom might not give Warren enough experience to guide her education policy, DiSciscio is heartened by the senator’s pledge to appoint a teacher as U.S. education secretary. “It is enough experience to know the importance of choosing the right person to make those [education policy] decisions,” she said.

Democrats in “denial” about charter schools. At Flypaper.

Though it may be lost on those with a bad case of impeachment brain, the logical implication of those two strands of research is that an increase in the percentage of students in a community who enroll in charter schools should lead to systemic gains—that is, to an overall increase in achievement across all public schools—including those in traditional public schools.

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by Adam Laats on October 14, 2019  •  Permalink
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Posted by Adam Laats on October 14, 2019

https://iloveyoubutyouregoingtohell.org/2019/10/14/i-love-you-but-you-didnt-do-the-reading-142/

Is Trump the Real Menace to Evangelical Higher Ed?

We’ve had a lot to talk about this week. When Beto O’Rourke told CNN he would try to revoke the tax-exempt status of any religious institution that didn’t recognize same-sex marriage, he set off a firestorm among the evangelical-higher-ed community. As two Democratic congresspeople pointed out this week, though, the bigger threat to evangelical higher ed might actually be coming from a very different direction.

As SAGLRROILYYBYGTH are aware, the discussions at evangelical universities and colleges about LGBTQ rights have been intense. By stating that he would revoke the tax-exempt status of religious institutions that did not recognize same-sex marriage, O’Rourke raised the specter of Bob Jones University v. USA. Back in the 1980s, that SCOTUS case proved that the government really could deny tax-exempt status to schools that insisted on maintaining racial segregation. Might the government make a similar move about LGBTQ rights?

Evangelical intellectuals reacted furiously. As John Fea commented,

Beto has no chance of winning the Democratic nomination. His campaign has been on life support for a long time and last night he probably killed it.  You better believe that his comment will rally the Trump base and legitimate the fears of millions of evangelical Christians.

In my opinion, too, Beto’s comment was a poorly considered response to a badly worded question. I’m no evangelical, but like Friendly Atheist Hemant Mehta, I disagree with Beto on two counts. First of all, the government should not be in the business of policing religious belief. (When we want to talk about federal funds for student loans, we will need to have a different conversation.) Second, though, simply strategically, Beto goofed. In short, when the clown car of Trumpism is on fire, opponents should do everything they can to help people escape. It makes no strategic sense to lock people in.

Unnoticed in all the hubbubery about Beto’s comments, though, two Democratic congresspeople this week sent a letter to Ed Secretary Betsy DeVos. Representatives Andy Levin of Michigan and Jamie Raskin of Maryland complained that the Trump administration was selectively enforcing its rules about campus free speech.

As they noted, President Trump signed an executive order threatening to withhold grants from universities that do not welcome free speech. The idea was to punish public universities such as the University of California that de-platformed conservative speakers. As the congresspeople noted, however, the worst offenders against campus free speech are conservative evangelical colleges like Liberty University.

As the Congresspeople complained,

Despite Executive Order 13864, which directs the Department to ensure institutions promote free inquiry, you have failed to act in cases of suppression of ideas that involve the administration’s political allies, such as Liberty University.

It’s not just Liberty U., which by any standards is an outlier in the field of evangelical higher ed. As I’ve argued in these pages and in Fundamentalist U, free speech presents a unique challenge to conservative evangelical higher education as a whole. Restrictions on speech and belief are the defining feature of evangelical universities. Unlike mainstream colleges, evangelical colleges do not claim to represent forums for all sorts of controversial ideas.

liberty letter devos

Dear Queen Betsy:

Threatening to revoke the tax-exempt status of religious institutions that don’t believe in same-sex marriage might sound scary to conservative evangelicals. But Trump’s warning to revoke student grants from institutions that don’t recognize free-speech rights should be of more immediate concern. To be fair, Trump’s executive order specified that private institutions should only be pushed into

compliance with stated institutional policies regarding freedom of speech.

Presumably, that wouldn’t help Liberty much, but it would give cover to conservative evangelical colleges that respect their own official rules restricting student and faculty speech. However, in the big picture, by threatening to take federal action against schools that restrict free speech, Trump might be planting the seeds of a longer-term problem for evangelical institutions.

After all, the language of LGBTQ rights has some wiggle room. Plenty of evangelical institutions could plausibly claim to recognize the rights of LGBTQ students and faculty while still embracing their religious skepticism about LGBTQ “practice.”

When it comes to free speech, however, evangelical universities have been built on a promise of restriction. If they were forced to abandon those rules, it would force them to give up the biggest single feature that distinguishes them from mainstream higher ed. It is free speech, not LGBTQ rights, that is the most important thing separating evangelical colleges from others.

Beto is talking a lot, but the real danger to evangelical higher ed might come from the other side. It might be Trump, in the end, who blunders into undermining the very foundation of evangelical higher ed.

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by Adam Laats on October 13, 2019  •  Permalink
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Posted by Adam Laats on October 13, 2019

https://iloveyoubutyouregoingtohell.org/2019/10/13/is-trump-the-real-menace-to-evangelical-higher-ed/

I Love You but You Didn’t Do the Reading

Pumpkins ripened this week and Bernie released a video praising teachers as working from “the bottom up.” Plus bellydancing creationists, protesting students at Liberty U, teaching for Trump, and a whole lot more in our weekly roundup:

Why don’t more kids learn about evolution? At the Atlantic.

The only high-school biology class I took was in ninth grade, and it was apparently so uninteresting to me that I don’t remember my teacher’s name. (My former school district did not return a request for comment.) My teachers were for the most part religious, though they appeared to stay firmly within the bounds of the state-mandated curriculum. In another class, my teacher showed us diagrams of the human eye, then snuck in a remark that the complexity of the eye is convincing evidence that there is a Creator.

Can schools save society? Larry Cuban reflects.

I used to think that public schools were vehicles for reforming society. And now I think that while good teachers and schools can promote positive intellectual, behavioral, and social change in individual children and youth, schools are (and have been) ineffectual in altering social inequalities.

larry cuban reform concHave evangelical colleges avoided the “comfort college” dilemma? At PS.

In my classes and others, in faculty and student research, I see nothing like what Gerrard calls “the devaluing of knowledge” or “social death” for those on the wrong side of “wokeness.” In the humanities at Bethel, I see people continuing to ask complicated questions of themselves, each other, and the authors and audiences of the texts they read, with humility, hospitality, empathy, and in no expectation that things will resolve neatly. We make each other uncomfortable, make mistakes together, apologize to each other, and continue to seek better answers together.

“Evangelical” has lost its meaning, says Alan Jacobs at The Atlantic.

of all the traits that attracted evangelicals to Reagan, perhaps the most important was his sunny and fervent patriotism. Already white American evangelicals had a tendency to associate Christianity closely with the American experiment, and to think of their country as a “Christian nation.” . . . This transformation of evangelical from a theological position to a “racial and political” one is not just bad for serious Christians; it’s also a prime driver of the increasing hostility of liberals to religion in almost any form.

No evangelicals among the Blue Devils: Duke students reject Young Life as anti-LGBTQ. At RNS.

the student government senate unanimously turned down official recognition for the Young Life chapter, because it appeared to violate a guideline that every Duke student group include a nondiscrimination statement in its constitution.

Liberty U students against Falwell Jr. At NPR.

We organized this protest in response to both articles that dropped this week. We really are protesting President Falwell’s habitual behavior of – various allegations of misconduct, especially ones of sexual harassment, and the habitual abuse of his subordinates as well as students and various Christian leaders that he’s attacked on Twitter as well.

Turkish creationist Harun Yahya goes on trial for running a blackmail cult. At NCSE.

How a science teacher should answer a radical creationist, at AU.

“This is science, and science deals with facts. It doesn’t deal with belief. It doesn’t have to be a dilemma or a concern for someone to choose between Christianity and evolution – that’s not what this is about. You can actually embrace both. It’s my duty as a teacher to teach science and not teach religion. That’s the separation of church and state.”

Conservatives win one in the wedding-cake LGBTQ wars. At AZC.

Duka and Koski create invitations and other handmade artwork for weddings and events. The women — who hold the religious belief that marriage should only be between one man and one woman — do not want to design invitations or other custom artwork for LGBTQ couples because they believe it would be the equivalent of endorsing the marriage.

The women are represented by Scottsdale-based Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal group challenging similar laws across the country.

Check out the connection between $$ and quality in Ohio’s public schools. HT: PG.

Ohio schools realHow to get fired in Fort Worth. A teacher loses her job for tweeting to Trump to do “anything you can do to remove the illegals from Fort Worth.” At DN.

Florida Man (and Woman) had one heck of a night, at USAT.

A Florida couple is facing multiple charges after they started having sex in the back of a police car — after they were already under arrest on DUI charges.

How do religious scientists feel about non-religious ones? Insights from Tolstoy at JTA.

The problem is that those of us who have an abiding religious faith also believe in science. . . . We recognize that you present an objective truth, and that your approach is worthy of careful deliberation. But we get little in return. When you look at us, you can barely conceal your contempt. What you see is little more than confusion, superstition and folly.

Bernie releases a video celebrating teachers’ strikes in WV.

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by Adam Laats on September 23, 2019  •  Permalink
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Posted by Adam Laats on September 23, 2019

https://iloveyoubutyouregoingtohell.org/2019/09/23/i-love-you-but-you-didnt-do-the-reading-139/

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