On September 9, 2020 the US Department of Education implemented an executive order by President Trump which ensures the protection of a student’s First Amendment rights on college campuses. The rule states that any public institution could not deny a religious student organization any of the rights, benefits, or privileges that are otherwise afforded to other student organizations. This in short treats religious organizations the same as secular organizations on public college campuses.
To ensure the compliance with this new order, public institutions must follow all orders in the First Amendment if they are to receive government funding. If an institution is found to be breaking these guidelines they could lose privileges to funds now and in the future as well. This ruling also helps to decipher which institutions are controlled by “religious organizations” who would not receive government funding. Under Title IX, schools who discriminate against individuals based on sex cannot receive government funding. The new order also prohibits schools from using such funding to pay for any promotion of religion and amends the rule against using the funding for secular programs.
The new order by the US Department of Education and President Trump will go into effect 60 days after September 9. It is a win for all of the country when the First Amendment is protected. For example, in 2018 InterVarsity at The University of Iowa was banned from campus because it promoted Christianity. A year before that, Iowa removed a Christian business club after a complaint about its belief that marriage is between a man and a woman. Other groups from Iowa that have been banned are the Latter-day Saint Student Association, the Sikh Awareness Club, and the Chinese Student Christian Fellowship.
There is a growing movement out there which aims to defund many universities because they are clearly teaching and promoting certain beliefs as objective truth. Schools such as Catholic University should not get funding because they are religiously affiliated and it would be unconstitutional to do so. However, schools whose professors and faculty lean to one worldview receive funding; why should they? A study by Mitchell Langbert, a professor at Brooklyn College found that 39 percent of colleges do not have a single Republican professor and are overwhelmingly. So the question I raise today is; How is indoctrination of religious beliefs different from indoctrination of another set of organized beliefs. The main distinction between a religious set of beliefs and let’s say the Democratic Party Platform is the belief in God. Both are very organized but only one is eligible for funding.
This argument is not in favor of funding religious schools but instead for the defunding of public schools who promote certain beliefs as objective truth, similar to religious schools. One belief that I have noticed that is accepted at schools is socialism. This belief does not directly involve God but it is contrary to Catholic moral teaching and other Christian sects. So why would this secular belief deserve funding rather than a funding for the teaching against it at a religious school?
I believe you raise an interesting question about the difference between certain belief systems. I have often found that I ask myself the same thing. Religion could be generally defined as adherence to a belief system, usually moral, but could be otherwise. Christianity is a belief system that asserts the existence of God and claims him to be the ultimate moral authority in the universe. Empiricists might suggest that humans evolved over time into what we are now and that morals came about from people using their cognitive faculties of perception to pick up on certain behaviors that allow for societal harmony or are otherwise advantageous. However, I do not understand why, assuming each worldview is equally valid, that one of these belief systems is privileged over the other? I must agree with Justice Scalia in his decision on the Lambs Chapel v. Union School District that it is quite a strange notion that our constitution "which gives religion in general preferential treatment" also "forbids religion in general." If religion is taken to be what i describe, then how could one take secular liberalism to be anything other than a belief system that we adhere to in order to establish moral truths. Why should the progressives and empiricists run a monopoly on government policy? How could this not devolve into predatory action on their part towards religious institutions? All of these considerations are worth thinking about.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Dominic that this is a very valid question, with many layers. The overarching viewpoint of specific universities, the culture within certain companies, and the values of particular industries certainly push a certain agenda. It interests me that this is only considered problematic when religion is being pushed; very few bat an eye when universities push political views. The one difference I can identify is the general surplus of rules that disallow the inclusion of religion, and lack of governance on opinions concerning social topics. The question begs the answer to WHY there is not restriction on the latter, and to that, I am unsure. I do think that something should be done about this, because the infiltration of individual's political views has gotten to be overwhelming, from what I have observed.
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