The United States Department of Education is being accused of unjustly targeting Christian colleges and universities, allegedly to advance a “woke agenda.”
The American Principles Project, a conservative think-tank, published a report earlier this month that cites the department’s Office of Enforcement actions against Christian schools.
According to the report, although Christian colleges and universities have fewer than 10% of students in the U.S., they make up around 70% of the penalties imposed by the Office of Enforcement.
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Additionally, over the past 10 years, while the average fine against public and private academic institutions that violated federal law on campus crime was around $228,571, the average fine against a Christian school was $815,000.
The report also took issue with the record fines recently imposed on Grand Canyon University and Liberty University, two prominent Evangelical Christian academic institutions.
According to the APP, when the department issued punitive fines on Michigan State University and Penn State University for high-profile abuse scandals, they were several million dollars less.
APP Policy Director Jon Schweppe, author of the report, said in a statement released on Nov. 18 that he believed this was an example of the Biden administration “weaponizing every part of the federal government to target their opponents.”
“As our report details, the Biden-Harris Department of Education has been engaged in a long-running scheme to punish Christian colleges that are ideologically opposed to the left’s agenda. The unfair targeting of these institutions has been egregious, and it needs to stop immediately,” stated Schweppe.
The Christian Post reached out to the Department of Education, with a department spokesperson emailing a statement on Friday denying the allegations in the APP report.
“A school’s religious affiliation or nonprofit status has absolutely no bearing on our oversight and enforcement actions,” the spokesperson stated. “Our top priority is protecting safety and academic opportunity for all students at institutions of higher education. The data in the APP report itself pushes a false narrative by distorting information released publicly by the Department.”
The APP report comes as President-elect Donald Trump has expressed an interest in downsizing or even closing down the Education Department once he takes office next year.
“We want federal education dollars to follow the student, rather than propping up a bloated and radical bureaucracy in Washington, D.C.,” Trump said in October, as quoted by USA Today. “We want to close the federal Department of Education.”
U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., introduced a bill to abolish the Education Department, although it requires a supermajority of the Senate to pass.