Joe Biden’s Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona, threatened during a congressional hearing to weaponize the Department of Education to target and shut down the largest Christian university in the United States.
As Fox News reports, Cardona made his threats during a hearing before the House Appropriations Committee, in response to a question by far-left Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.). DeLauro attacked Grand Canyon University (CGU), falsely declaring it "a predatory for-profit school," to which Cardona said that “we are cracking down not only to shut them down, but to send a message to not prey on students.”
“You have a shiny brochure and a great commercial,” Cardona said.
“But the product is not worth the paper it’s written on. We have students graduating 60K to 70K dollars in debt, only eligible for jobs making under 30K. That to me is unacceptable.”
GCU has been accused of misleading students about the true cost of some of its doctoral programs, for which Cardona’s Education Department fined the university $37.7 million; the school is currently appealing that fine, which was implemented in November.
Past fines imposed by the Education Department on other schools were significantly smaller, with Penn State being fined just $2.4 million for its failure to deal with Jerry Sandusky’s sexual crimes; Michigan State was fined only $4.5 million for its similar failure to respond to the crimes of Larry Nassar.
In October, the department claimed that an investigation by the office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) determined that GCU had “lied” about the true costs of its doctoral programs to over 7,500 students, while presenting no evidence.
The department then gave GCU just 20 days to request a hearing with the department’s Office of Hearings and Appeals to object to the fine.
“Our next recourse after that decision would be another appeal within the Department, this time directly to the Secretary of Education,” said a GCU spokesman.
“Officials continue to make derogatory and inflammatory public statements that are legally and factually incorrect and not shared by any of the other 26 regulatory and accrediting bodies that oversee GCU,” the GCU spokesman continued.
“The Secretary’s comments to the House Appropriations Committee were so reckless that GCU is demanding an immediate retraction, as they do not reflect the factual record in this case. He is either confused, misinformed or does not understand the actions taken by his own agency.”
In response to Cardona’s threats, the American Principles Project (APP) has launched a petition to “protect Christian colleges.”
The petition says, in part, that in “light of the Biden administration’s unprecedented attacks on our nation’s largest Christian colleges,” the AFP and all signatories to the petition demand that “the administration halt their crusade and let students choose the schools that fit their values.”
