Alumni Of Right-Wing Law School Denounce Trump
This protest might be missing the mark.
It’s been so long since right-wing ideologues controlled the Justice Department that many have forgotten about Regent University School of Law. The school, founded and still run by televangelist (and Yale Law School graduate and bar exam failer) Pat Robertson, has been a bit quiet since George W. left the White House. Back in the heady days of the Alberto Gonzales regime, the lightly regarded law school had a pipeline into the DOJ. Ultimately, this cozy relationship brewed into a scandal when a Regent grad named Monica Goodling served as the point person for the politically motivated firing of federal prosecutors.
On Saturday, Regent University hosted a Donald Trump rally on its campus, as doctrinally right-leaning entities are wont to do. But a number of Regent University School of Law grads took issue with the school tying itself closely to a candidate that they feel veers fairly far from their Christian values. Unfortunately, that number is 14. Literally, they could find only 14 grads to sign their name to an open letter calling out Trump’s anti-Christian antics.
Do they not understand the Bible says, “Thou shalt grab her by the pussy?” I think it’s in “Two Corinthians.”
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The letter, posted in full on the next page, does not pull any punches:
The mission of Regent is to “serve[] as a center of Christian thought and action to provide excellent education through a biblical perspective and global context equipping Christian leaders to change the world. Mr. Trump is antithetical to this mission. He brags about sexual exploits and assault, degrades women habitually, proposes that all Muslims be excluded from entry into the U.S., encourages violence by his supporters, and promotes killing terrorists’ innocent families. His arrogant, hyper-sensitive temperament is unbecoming a serious candidate for the President of the United States and contradicts the biblical teachings of humble, servant leadership. In short, many of Mr. Trump’s attributes, activities, and positions do not align with the Christian principles taught at Regent University, and we reject them. We urge the administration, faculty, and students at Regent to do likewise.
On the one hand, good for these 14 graduates to stand up to their school selling out for someone in wild opposition to their religious values. This letter of protest comes on the heels of similar unrest at Liberty University, another law school founded by a televangelist that cast its lot with Trump. One could argue — and be correct — that the Republican Party has trafficked in a perversion of Christian values for decades and that Trump is, at best, only the apotheosis of this charade, but for those who take the religious conservative reading of the Bible seriously, the line must be drawn here.
Fivethirtyeight posted an internal discussion recently that proposed that Trump’s candidacy has divided the GOP into two camps going forward: cultural conservatives vs. religious conservatives. The two camps have historically been lumped together for espousing overlapping opinions, stuck together as they were under the puppet mastery of an economic libertarian minority. But that minority has lost control of their coalition, and now members of the cultural camp have carved out a curiously retrograde vision of economic populism and “no-f**ks-given” political incorrectness in contrast to the earnest religious gentility best exemplified by the abject horror that Mormons appear to feel at the very prospect of Trump. There’s an opening for true religious conservatives to forge their own political party unencumbered by the baggage of the economic and cultural conservatives who cobbled together the Reagan coalition.
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On the other hand, you’re Regent grads! As the letter notes, the signatories are a diverse group, and Regent doesn’t require a blood oath to march in lockstep with The 700 Club, but at a certain point these graduates gave their money and intellectual talents to an entity — Pat Robertson d/b/a Regent — that, frankly, has been doing the Trump thing since way before Trump. My point is: now TRUMP offends you? Where were you when your school’s founder and raison d’être was saying:
When a caller complained that his wife insults him and once raised a hand to him, Robertson lamented the end of legal wife-beating. “I don’t think we condone wife-beating these days but something has got to be done,” he whined. After characterizing the wife as someone who “does not understand authority,” he “jokingly” recommended that the husband move to Saudi Arabia, so that he can legally batter her.
That doesn’t trigger the “degrades women habitually” sensitivity? It’s pretty Trumpish to watch.
Or when Robertson said, in the context of the devastating Haitian earthquake, that it was God’s retribution for Haiti’s “pact with the Devil” to free themselves from slavery?
….something happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French, uh you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the Devil. They said we will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French. True story. And so the Devil said, “OK, it’s a deal.” And they kicked the French out. You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free.
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I mean… there are no words.
I’m not trying to denigrate the effort. Indeed, more Regent grads need to take up the challenge mounted by these 14 signatories and stand up for what they actually believe rather than the bastardized version of Christianity the Republican Party is trying to sell to justify Donald Trump. But if these folks are really concerned about the casual degradation of women and trafficking in demeaning cultural stereotypes gussied up under the guise of religion, Donald Trump may not be the fundamental problem — it might be the guy running the school. Because the people claiming to speak for the religion are way more of a long-term impediment to realizing the values described in the letter than the people begging for religious votes in one election.
Hopefully some or all of the signatories intended this letter to be just such a backhanded rebuke of Robertson.
(Full letter on the next page…)
Scandal puts spotlight on Christian law school [Boston Globe]
Citing ‘Two Corinthians,’ Trump Struggles To Make The Sale To Evangelicals [NPR]
Is This What It Looks Like When A Party Falls Apart? [Fivethirtyeight]
Joe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.
