Higher Education: Is Liberty Losing Freedom by Playing Virginia’s Tune?

Liberty University has made three religious-policy concessions in order to keep state aid flowing to students, but some believe the price was too steep.

On June 1, the Virginia Council of Higher Education voted 8 to 2 to approve Liberty’s continuance in the Tuition Assistance Grants (TAG) program. Students at the financially troubled university in Lynchburg will be eligible for $1.2 million in state scholarship aid in the 1993–94 school year.

Spurred by a 1991 Virginia Supreme Court decision that deemed Liberty a “pervasively sectarian” school, Americans United for Separation of Church and State had asked the council to determine whether the university qualified for state aid. Under Virginia law, students who attend schools that have a primary purpose of religious or theological training are banned from receiving financial help from the state.

Acting on complaints from Americans United, the education council voted last December to require Liberty to change three policies or risk losing state subsidies.

Policy changes

By last month, Liberty had agreed to the changes in order to keep the funds flowing. Students and faculty no longer are required to attend Sunday morning or Wednesday evening church services; students and faculty no longer must sign forms agreeing to abide by doctrinal statements; and faculty now are free to publish materials that may conflict with university doctrine.

“Liberty has basically agreed to exchange its unique religious character for a government handout,” says Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director. “I expect many contributors to Jerry Falwell’s ministry will be disappointed.”

Falwell, who is also pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church, founded the Lynchburg school in 1971 and serves as its chancellor. He told CT the policy changes will not alter the university because the regulations never were enforced. “Liberty has never had to compromise its identity as a distinctively Christian school,” says Falwell, 59. “It has done nothing to affect the purity of our evangelical identity.” Falwell says plenty of strict regulations still exist on such matters as alcohol, tobacco, dress code, and coed dormitories.

But changes have been made before at Liberty, which was originally called Liberty Baptist College. For example, three years ago the university changed its catalog, replacing “chapel” with “convocation” and “Christian” service requirements with “community service.”

Longstanding feud

Americans United spokesman Joseph Conn says there are no plans to appeal the Virginia aid ruling because Liberty has stripped away so many of its religious distinctives that such a case would be difficult for Americans United to win. “We never thought Jerry would make these dramatic changes in order to ensure the flow of money,” he says. “Once you start taking government funds you have to play by the government rules that ultimately can hurt a ministry.”

Americans United was also instrumental in derailing a 1989 Liberty plan to issue $61 million in low-interest, tax-free bonds through the Industrial Development Authority of Lynchburg. The Virginia Supreme Court ruled against Liberty in 1991, citing church/state separation concerns.

Falwell questions the agenda of Americans United. “We’re their boogie-man,” he says. “They never challenge a Roman Catholic school or a Mormon school. In my opinion, they are bigots against the evangelical Christian viewpoint.”

Falwell believes that if the Virginia council had been successful in denying TAG funds to Liberty students, the next target would have been federal Pell grants, which account for $14 million in annual aid.

Such a debate over government control is not new. In a 1984 case involving Grove City College, a Presbyterian school in Pennsylvania, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Pell grants and other scholarships to students “constitute federal financial assistance.” Rather than allow the government to stake a claim in its operations, Grove City has rejected scholarship aid programs.

“As a matter of Christian stewardship and Christian liberty, the government must be kept at arm’s length,” says Charles MacKenzie, who served as Grove City College president from 1971 to 1991. “If it gets entangled with government funding, a college is forced to compromise.”

Falwell says the primary purpose of Liberty is not to train pastors—the disqualifying factor for state assistance. Only 10 percent of the student body enter full-time Christian work. “The aid isn’t given to the institution, but to individual students who are making the decision about what university to attend.” Falwell says 15 other Christian schools in Virginia have students receiving state aid, but Liberty has been singled out by Americans United because of its conservative stance.

Liberty alumni and the 4,000 resident students on campus in the fall “will sense no difference whatsover,” Falwell says. “Liberty is as committed as we’ve ever been. They know Liberty would never compromise anything.”

Student aid is not the only battle Falwell has had over money recently. In February, the Internal Revenue Service, after a four-year investigation, revoked the tax-exempt status of the “Old Time Gospel Hour” for the years 1986 and 1987. The ministry agreed to pay $50,000 in taxes after the IRS determined that “Old Time Gospel Hour” assets and personnel were used to raise funds for a political action committee, the I Love America Committee, which supported various congressional candidates.

Last year Falwell revived the “Old Time Gospel Hour” as one way to help the school restructure $73 million in debt. The program had gone off the air in 1991 in the wake of televangelist scandals, but now the “Old Time Gospel Hour” is back on more than 225 TV stations.

The debt has been whittled to $45 million, Falwell says, and will be eliminated by the turn of the century at the latest.

By John W. Kennedy.

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