Written by
Lynchberg, Virginia’s Liberty University—the institution of higher learning founded by Jerry Falwell—has revoked its recognition of the school’s Democratic Party club. Liberty Vice President for Student Affairs Mark Hine called the Democratic Party’s platform, “contrary to the mission of LU and to Christian doctrine.”
Now a degree from this diploma mill carries the same weight in the job market as a degree from any correspondence school, online university, or institution where the entrance exam consists of drawing either a turtle or a pirate. George W. Bush’s justice department crawled with Regent University alums, most of whom knew just enough constitutional law to invoke the 5th Amendment. Oral Roberts has more credibility—and a better basketball team.
Hine’s e-mail to Democratic club members reads like a Republican talking points memo: there’s the gratuitous swipe at “the ‘LGBT’ agenda” [equal rights in the eyes of the law and the tax code—really not a radical notion]; “defense of marriage” [word is the Republican club on campus is doing swimmingly—despite the presence on the party’s national slate of multiple divorcees, adulterers, and other unhappily married frauds]; and “socialism” [progressive taxation]. Never mind that the Republican party chair recently rejected an attempt to rebrand the Democratic Party, “the Socialist Democrat Party”—Liberty administrators are committed to wrongheaded juvenilia.
I’d say that this decision trashes the notion of college as a horizon-broadening experience, but that misses the mark. People rarely go to televangelist universities to have their convictions challenged. So instead, I’ll advise Democratic Party club members to transfer to another religious institution—where the administrators don’t feel that the university’s mission is threatened by garden variety club activities. Almost any will do: most have some bird of prey as a mascot—falcon, eagle, hawk, etc. You won’t even need to change school gear.