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Fight for Christian Education in California Far From Over

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Christian colleges in California and across the country are preparing for more public challenges to their long-cherished beliefs in the wake of recent debate in the California legislature.

Dr. John Jackson, president of William Jessup University, spoke with CBN News about why the fight for California Christian education is not over.

SB1146, a proposed bill that would have stripped the ability of California students to receive state aid at colleges that hold biblical beliefs on sexual orientation and gender identity, galvanized California's Christian community. In response, they created The Association of Faith-Based Institutions and raised $350,000 to fight the legislation.

Shirley Hoogstra, president of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, said the bill would have disproportionately harmed financially needy students.

"The bill would have severely affected low-income students who want to attend an academically rigorous religious college or university," she said.

She noted that 75 percent of those who receive state aid in California, known as Cal Grants, are racial and ethnic minorities.

Sen. Ricarda Lara, D-Bell Gardens, amended the bill this week and removed the proposed state aid penalty for California colleges and universities that request a religious exemption to Title IX, a federal statute. The Department of Education recently reinterpreted the law, redefining discrimination to include gender identity and sexual orientation.

Lara is moving forward with a reporting requirement that will mandate that faith-based schools publicly disclose their religious exemption to Title IX.  Lara also wants faith-based educational institutions to report when they expel students based on their standards of conduct.

"The goal for me has always been to shed light on the appalling and unacceptable discrimination against LGBT students at these private religious institutions throughout California," Lara told the Los Angeles Times.

Dr. John Jackson, president of William Jessup University, told CBN News, "we're willing to report because, quite frankly, the truth is far less shocking than the senator or others might imagine."

"William Jessup University and no other faith-based schools that I'm aware of really do not engage in a habit of expelling students unless there are gross, repeated violations and unrepentant violations of our community covenant," he said.

However, Jackson said it's not yet clear whether colleges can report such expulsions and still conform with the federal educational privacy law commonly known as FERPA, or the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

Jackson, Hoogstra and other Christian college leaders are warning that the faith community must prepare for more legislative challenges.

"We know this will continue to be an ongoing and important conversation, as matters connected to student safety and educational access always are," Hoogstra said.

She added that the CCCU wants to work with California lawmakers "in such a way that strengthens the pluralistic system of higher education and continues to enable religious students to have equal access to higher education."

Many Christian leaders see the current debate as reflective of the broader need for faith-based colleges to explain their mission to an increasingly secular society.

"We are fighting for the preservation of a confident and coherent Christianity, one that's passed on to the next generation intact and not redefined according to the cultural zeitgeist," Dr. Barry Corey, president of Biola University in Southern California, recently wrote in The Gospel Coalition.

 

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About The Author

Heather
Sells

Heather Sells covers wide-ranging stories for CBN News that include religious liberty, ministry trends, immigration, and education. She’s known for telling personal stories that capture the issues of the day, from the border sheriff who rescues migrants in the desert to the parents struggling with a child that identifies as transgender. In the last year, she has reported on immigration at the Texas border, from Washington, D.C., in advance of the Dobbs abortion case, at crisis pregnancy centers in Massachusetts, and on sexual abuse reform at the annual Southern Baptist meeting in Anaheim