MSNBC host Rachel Maddow took a cheap shot at Liberty University in a recent podcast interview with her leftist colleague Chris Hayes.
Ms. Maddow bemoaned Christian universities like Liberty as “this anti-intellectual, anti-elite line of argument that we’ve seen from right-wing populists since the beginning of time.”
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Ms. Maddow then attempted to prove her point by attacking Kerri Kupec, the new spokesperson for the Justice Department. The story was first reported by Newsbusters.
“We’ve got a new Justice Department spokesperson who’s from Liberty University, and Liberty University was founded by a televangelist so that your Christian child wouldn’t be corrupted by actual higher education. And now that’s the spokesperson for the Justice Department,” she said.
Ms. Kupec was the former communications director for Alliance Defending Freedom, an organization that has argued a number of religious liberty cases before the Supreme Court. She was also a law clerk for Judge William Petty on the Court of Appeals of Virginia.
Ms. Kupec earned an undergraduate degree at Queens College and she studied at the graduate level at Fordham. She graduated from Liberty University School of Law in 2011.
“These things add up,” Ms. Maddow said. “They have real results in the world. Is there going to be a backlash to that? Is there going to be a resurgent intellectualism in hard line conservatism that isn’t the kind of white supremacist stuff that we’re seeing, which is the pseudo-intellectual stuff, right? I don’t know, but it adds up. It adds up over time.”
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In other words, liberals like Ms. Maddow think all of us church-going folks are a bunch of ignorant hillbilly Klansmen who worship at the cross on Sunday and then burn the cross on Sunday night.
Liberty University President Jerry Falwell, Jr., whose father founded the school, told me Ms. Maddow’s demonstrated her religious bigotry. Not only that, he said her comments were stupid and ignorant.
“She needs to study her history. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown – most the Ivy league schools were founded by preachers and evangelists,” Falwell said on my nationally-syndicated radio show. “That’s a long tradition in this country. She just shows her ignorance when she makes comments like that.”
In addition to a law school, Liberty University has a medical school and a school of engineering. The university’s students are sought-after in the workforce because of their work ethic and servant hearts.
Several years ago I was privileged to have a Liberty University student as a college associate at Fox News. He was one of the hardest-working college students I’ve known.
“They don’t have an entitlement attitude,” Falwell said. “They go out with the idea of serving people and earning their way.”
In reality Liberty University is a school that thrives on debate and free speech, unlike many government-run schools.
The university has introduced students to a diverse group of speakers – from former President Jimmy Carter and Sen. Bernie Sanders to President Trump and even yours truly.
Compare that to places like the Ivy League where conservatives are treated like enemy invaders and evangelical speakers are persona non grata.
“Those universities founded by good Christian people centuries ago are now places of liberal indoctrination,” Falwell told me. “They are intolerant. They’ve become fascists. They want to shut you up. They don’t want any other viewpoint but theirs in the classroom.”
It’s true that Liberty University is firmly rooted in Judeo-Christian philosophy — the same philosophy that is the foundation for our nation.
I’d say we are better off with a private Christian university that affirms the teachings of Jesus Christ, than a government-run university that affirms the teachings of Karl Marx.