The Biden administration’s Dept. of Education issued a plan Tuesday to overturn a Trump-era regulation which safeguards religious student groups by withholding federal money from institutions that restrict the groups’ speech and activity.
According to the DOE, the 2020 policy places the department in a “unduly burdensome position” and fails to offer “meaningfully increased protection” for children.
The regulation was implemented as part of a 2019 executive order made by former President Trump to guarantee colleges could not censor or limit the activities of religious student groups on campus.
It empowered the Department of Education to remove grant funds from public colleges that were deemed to have infringed students’ First Amendment rights. Moreover, the policy mandates colleges to grant religious student groups the same privileges as other campus groups, such as access to campus resources.
According to former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, the policy was put in place to safeguard children, instructors, and faith-based organizations.
“Kids should not be forced to decide between their religion and their education, and institutions owned by religious organizations should not be required to forsake their religious views in order to participate in Department grants and programs,” DeVos said.
The DOE will begin evaluating rules in September 2021 to identify which policies “impose additional conditions on its higher education institutions grant recipients.”
The Department of Education recently concluded that the 2020 policy is “not needed to protect the First Amendment right to free speech and the free exercise of religion given current legal protections, it has caused some confusion about schools’ nondiscrimination regulations, and it prescribed an unduly burdensome role for the Dept. in trying to investigate allegations regarding the way public institutions’ treat religious student groups.”
“We have not found evidence that the rule has given materially improved protection for religious student groups beyond the extensive First Amendment protections that currently exist,” the DOE noted.
The DOE stated that “a threat of corrective action with respect to the Department’s funds does not help accomplish this aim.”
The department indicated that it “shares the position that public institutions shouldn’t treat religious student groups less favorably than other student groups,” but that if a public schools discriminate against any religious student groups, the matter should be handled in court.
From February 22, the DOE’s plan to remove the policy will be accessible to public comment for 30 days.
Simple solution. Abolish the Department of Education. That would kill at least two birds with one stone. First kids wouldn’t have to worry as much about being indoctrinated with liberal crap. Second a totally useless organization would be eliminated and save the taxpayers a whole lot of money. I fully grant the liberals would whine and cry until Hell froze over but let them. They’re going to do that anyway.
You got that right! For the sake of our children and everyone else – Abolish the Department of Education now.
I agree!
REDWOLF WE ARE SO PROUD OF YOU. YES ABOLISH THE DEPT OF EDUCATION AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. THEY CERTAINLY DO NOT EDUCATE OUR CHILDREN AT ALL. TEACHING THEM ALL THIS LIBERAL CRAP. PLUS THIS SICK GENDER IDENTITY. NO CHILD SHOULD HAVE TO LISTEN TO THIS.
BIDEN SHOULD STOP THIS NONSENSE, UNLESS HE IS FOR ALL THIS PEDO STUFF.NEVER HAD OPEN BORDERS OR GENDER IDEOLOGIE UNDER TRUMP.