This has been true for decades: Journalists just love headlines that include Baylor University and anything having to do with sex.
More than two decades ago, it was Baylor coeds posing for Playboy. Two decades before that, it was student journalists getting fired for disagreeing with a Baylor policy that students shouldn’t pose for Playboy. Ironically, that controversy was an echo of earlier controversies about student journalists (including moi) publishing stories about sexual assaults near campus (and other hot topics).
The big idea for journalists is that sin exists at Jerusalem on the Brazos and that Baylor leaders are naive in thinking that they can do anything about that. Trust me: Some of these headlines are more important than others. Now we have this double-decker headline from Religion News Service:
Baylor University wins exemption from Title IX’s sexual harassment provisions
The private Baptist school argued discrimination complaints made by LGBTQ students were ‘inconsistent’ with the university’s religious values
As always, there are two questions that journalists need to answer when covering this fight and both of them involve religious doctrines that define this private academic community.
Question 1: Are Baylor’s “beliefs” backed by legal ties to a specific denomination and its teachings?
Question 2: Are Baylor students required to sign a “doctrinal covenant” in which they agree to support this private school’s “student code" or, at the very least, not to publicly oppose it?
The answer to both: Maybe, maybe not. Clarity on both of these questions is crucial to the Baylor left (and that is a real thing), the Baylor establishment and to Baylor’s conservative critics. It would help if journalists at RNS and other mainstream news outlets asked those questions and published the results. It’s no surprise that the best information can be found in niche Baptist-news sources.
Meanwhile, here is the RNS overture, atop a story that does not include a single sentence of material drawn from interviews with experts backing Baylor’s point of view.
The U.S. Department of Education accepted Baylor University’s request for exemption from Title IX’s sexual harassment provision after the private Baptist school asked to dismiss discrimination complaints filed by LGBTQ+ students that the university said were “inconsistent” with the institution’s religious values.
“For the first time in Title IX’s history, a federally-funded university has been given special permission, by the Biden Administration no less, to allow its LGBTQIA+ students to be sexually harassed,” wrote Paul Southwick, director of the Religious Exemption Accountability Project, in a statement.
In 2021, the nonprofit filed a Title IX complaint on behalf of former student Veronica Bonifacio Penales, in which she accused the university of tolerating sexual harassment after the school failed to address homophobic slurs she received from other students on campus and social media.
Over the past two years, religious universities invoking their right to exemption from certain Title IX dispositions in the name of religious freedom has been viewed by many LGBTQ advocates as a mechanism to avoid granting equal treatment and protection to queer students attending religious institutions.
Elizabeth Reiner Platt, director of the Law, Rights, and Religion Project at Columbia Law School, told the Texas Tribune that the decision was “the latest example of religious exemptions being expanded in ways that undermine equality rights.”
And so forth and so on. What were the details of the “homophobic slurs” and harassment messages? It appears that no one knows or is willing to say.
Ironically, news consumers can find some details of Baylor’s defense statements in openly liberal publications. Consider this byte from Mother Jones (“Baylor University Is No Longer Required to Protect Queer Students From Sexual Harassment”):
Baylor’s letter, signed by President Linda Livingstone, noted that the university was requesting an exemption in response to three complaints made to the DOE’s Office for Civil Rights: one about the decision to deny a charter for a queer student group, another about the school’s unsatisfactory response to students’ claims they were harassed based on their gender identity and sexual orientation, and a third based on allegations that the university pressured media outlets not to cover campus LGBTQ activism during the fall of 2021. In its exemption request, the school claimed that acting in accordance with Title IX in these instances would violate its religious tenets. Baylor, a Baptist institution, argued that its faith “affirms the biblical understanding of sexuality as a gift from God” and demands “purity in singleness and fidelity in marriage between a man and a woman as the biblical norm.”
The Advocate, a major publication specializing in LGBTQ+ news, offered this information stating the offended student’s claims:
Sticky notes with anti-LGBTQ+ slurs were left on the door to her dorm room, and students put homophobic posts on social media, she said. She also said Baylor’s policy opposing same-sex relationships forced her to hide her identity. She argued that these actions violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, a law that bans sex discrimination, including sexual harassment, in educational programs that receive federal funding.
Now, let’s return to the actual legal issues at the heart of this case. Shall we?
On the Baptist left, the Baptist News Global website (“Baylor asks for — and gets — new exemption to discriminate against LGBTQ students”) did address several questions relevant to activists on both sides of this debate.
As one would expect, Baylor separates “orientation” from “conduct” in issues linked to sex:
“The university does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity or expression per se, but it does regulate conduct that is inconsistent with the religious values and beliefs that are integral to its Christian faith and mission,” Baylor’s letter said. “Any asserted Title IX requirement that Baylor must allow sexual behavior outside of marital union between a man and a woman, or that contradicts the Baptist doctrine of marriage and the created distinction between men and women, is inconsistent with Baylor’s religious tenets, and the university is exempt from such requirement.”
What, precisely, is the source of the “Baptist doctrine of marriage” and “Baylor’s religious tenets”?
Hold that thought. Let’s keep reading:
Today, … the university’s student code of conduct still describes “purity in singleness and fidelity in marriage between a man and a woman as the biblical norm” students are expected to uphold. “Temptations to deviate from this norm include both heterosexual sex outside of marriage and homosexual behavior. It is thus expected that Baylor students will not participate in advocacy groups which promote understandings of sexuality that are contrary to biblical teaching.”
Ah, the “code of conduct” is at the heart of all of this.
Let me repeat my earlier question: At what point are students (maybe even faculty members) given a chance to affirm or reject this “code”? At many schools, students are asked to sign a doctrinal covenant when enrolling, perhaps every year. Does this happen at Baylor or is the assumption that it is the student’s responsibility to know and accept this code when they choose to apply to Baylor and then officially enroll?
Let’s state this from the doctrinal left’s point of view: Are LGBTQ+ students entering Baylor explicitly warned about the details of this policy and how it will affect their life on campus? Are they given a clear, honest chance to say “Yea” or “Nay” before they voluntarily join this private, doctrinally defined academic association?
The BNG website notes that, during its clashes with the Baptist right, Baylor has taken strong steps to distance itself from any control by a specific religious organization or denomination. For example, the school’s leaders salute the 1963 version of the Baptist Faith and Message statement, but not the 2000 text that is now official in the Southern Baptist Convention. Baylor is linked to the more “moderate” Baptist General Convention of Texas, but not in any way that meaningfully affects the university’s governance.
Nit-pickin’? Not from the point of view of LGBTQ+ activists. Back to the BNG report:
While Baylor’s 1976 letter to the DOE says the BGCT controls Baylor, the 2023 letter states, “Baylor is ‘controlled by’ a predominantly Baptist board of regents, which operates within the Christian-oriented aims and ideals of Baptists.”
Critics of Baylor’s most recent religious exemption request argue that because an external church does not control the university, the board of regents cannot be classified as a religious organization.
One more thing: Anyone who understands higher education knows that a university is defined by two groups of people — its trustees (or “regents,” in this case) and its faculty. Is Baylor united in its defense of the school’s doctrinal approach? BNG noted a key fact about an earlier dispute over whether the university would accept Gamma Alpha Upsilon, an official LGBTQ+ advocacy group, on campus.
Paul J. Williams, class of 1983, advised the LGBTQ Baylor family to remember Faculty Senate and Student Senate voted to support Gamma’s charter, and there’s a large group of alumni who are fighting for more inclusion at Baylor.
Thus, it would appear that the regents are now clashing with a majority of the faculty on this doctrinal question. What does this signal to students about the status of the “code of conduct”?
Finally, note this interesting passage from coverage by the SBC’s official Baptist Press newsroom:
The May 1 letter requesting confirmation of the religious exemption was prompted by several complaints filed with the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights in 2021. The specific complaints focused on the disposition of a charter request by the Gamma Alpha Upsilon LGBTQ student organization, claims of sexual harassment based on sexual orientation or gender identity, and alleged pressure placed on university media to not report on LGBTQ events and protests.
In the May 1 letter, Livingstone noted the Department of Education acknowledged Baylor’s religious exemption in 1985, in response to a 1976 request from the university.
She pointed to Baylor’s affiliation with the Baptist General Convention of Texas and associate membership in the Baptist World Alliance, and she stated the university is governed by a “predominantly Baptist” board of regents.
She identified Baylor as “a place where the Lordship of Jesus Christ is embraced, studied and celebrated,” and she stated Baylor operates “within Christian-oriented aims and ideals of Baptists,” including those in the 1963 Baptist Faith and Message statement of faith. “As a religiously controlled institution of higher education, the University prescribes standards of personal conduct that are consistent with its mission and values,” Livingstone wrote in the May 1 letter.
For LGBTQ+ activists who will continue this fight, knowing that they have support from faculty and many students, the key phrases there are “affiliation,” as opposed to any form of legal control, “associate membership” in a global network, not a denomination, and “a religiously controlled institution of higher education.” U.S. law seems to require an organic, legal tie to a specific faith group.
Stay tuned. Let’s hope that journalists — knowing that this matters to Baylor critics on left and right — will start asking more doctrinal questions, since the are crucial to this legal dispute.
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