Department of Education - citing religious freedom as a reason to ignore aspects of the Obama administration LGBT guidance - neither Bob Jones nor Liberty has pursued that option. And while many religious colleges since 2014 have secured partial Title IX waivers from the U.S.
And that guidance was not affected by the White House action last week.īob Jones University and Liberty University, both conservative private institutions, have codified prohibitions on transgender identities and sexual relations outside of heterosexual marriage of the Christian variety.įor example, the Liberty Way student honor code says, “Sexual relations outside of a biblically ordained marriage between a natural-born man and a natural-born woman are not permissible at Liberty University.”īob Jones says in its student handbook that the Christian Bible “names as sinful and prohibits any form of sexual activity between persons of the same sex.” The university says it expects all employees and students to abide by cited biblical statements on sexuality and gender identity.Īs a result, the two universities’ prohibitions on homosexual behavior could be used to penalize or even expel students. Remaining unnoticed, however, is an apparent conflict between two prominent religious universities’ takes on student sexuality and the 2014 guidelines on preventing discrimination based on sexual orientation and identity. The Trump administration last week generated plenty of headlines by withdrawing guidelines issued by the Obama administration regarding Title IX’s protections for transgender college students.