In Texas, a battle that pits consumer protection

In Texas, a battle that pits consumer protection against the free exercise of religion is gathering momentum. A Texas Supreme Court case and a challenge in the Legislature could give the state's religious groups -- from Southern Baptists to Sikhs -- the power to grant degrees without any state oversight. Today, all schools, from Baylor University in Waco to Dallas Theological Seminary, must meet the state's higher education standards or have state-recognized accreditation to grant degrees and call themselves a college, university or seminary.

An exemption would free religious schools alone to grant degrees without recognized accreditation or, for that matter, any standards whatsoever.

That's the way it should be, say opponents of Texas' 30-year-old higher education law: Buyer beware...

 

I agree with you that this would be a step backward for Texas. But it's worthy of note that such is (and has been, for a long time) the case in many other states. I'm not saying that makes it okay for Texas to do it, too. Rather, I wish more states did it the way you're saying Texas now does it (i.e., without the religious exemption). I'm just pointing out that Texas will not be breaking any new ground -- other than in Texas -- by exempting religious schools so that they can grant (academically worthless and sub-standard) degrees [sarcasm]without all that pesky governmental oversight[/sarcasm].

I'll tell you what will be interesting, however, is to see if any existing Texas institutions now operating under the current higher standard begin claiming the exemption when and if the law passes. That would be telling!

 

Perhaps we can then expect the same argument used by LaSalle, one state to the east, and supported by the Supreme Court of that state, that because God created everything, all degrees, whether in chemistry, psychology, or political science, are religious degrees.

 

I seem to recall something similar happening in California with the Institute of Creation Research. (I understand that ICR's founder also founded TRACS.)

ICR was state approved at the time. The predecessor of the BPPVE moved to revoke their approval because they were granting what were ostensibly degrees in the physical and biological sciences, but were really Bible apologetics degrees. (I suspect that the intention was to produce science teachers for fundamentalist Christian schools.)

ICR took the state to court, and the court found in ICR's favor. The court's reasoning was based on academic freedom (I don't know the precise legal theories invoked), namely that government shouldn't be permitted to dictate the details of university program content.

I guess that the state can still demand that non-religious-exempt approved schools teach a proper number of credit hours, have suitably qualified faculty and so on. But the content of the programs, no matter how lame it is, is off-limits to the BPPVE.

I'm sure that WASC, a private association, would never let Bible degrees be repackaged as science degrees. I guess that's one reason why TRACS was created.

 

It is a real pain, BTW. Once your consumer protection gets pitted, there's nothing for it but to sand the little sucker down, prime it and paint it!

 

Sounds almost like an intelligent design argument, no?

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