Gordon College's accreditation review

The story is here:

The regional body that accredits colleges and universities has given Gordon College a year to report back about a campus policy on homosexuality, one that may be in violation of accreditation standards.

The higher education commission of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges met last week and "considered whether Gordon College's traditional inclusion of 'homosexual practice' as a forbidden activity" runs afoul of the commission's standards for accreditation, according to a joint statement from NEASC and Gordon College. . . .

There's a lot going on here, obviously.  The premise of the one-year review, it appears, is that a body like the NEASC is now authorized to declare, and to enforce the declaration, that the mission and practices of a Christian college or university must conform with -- must be, as some put it, entirely "congruent" with -- (the current understanding of) the mission and practices of the liberal state in order to actually be a "college" or a "university."  But, this premise seems wrong to me.  (More here on that point.)  It is, it appears, not only that governments and officials and laws are constrained by the Lawrence decision but that civil-society institutions are (or should be), too.  

Check out John Inazu's recent paper, "Confident Pluralism," here, for a different take.

 

current