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Christian University Wins Legal Battle against Department of Education

November 19, 2024

Grand Canyon University (GCU), the largest Christian university in the country, just won a lengthy legal battle after its status as a nonprofit was targeted by the Biden administration’s Department of Education (DOE).

In 2021, GCU sued the DOE for denying its status as a nonprofit. In 2022, the lower court ruled in favor of the DOE, And then in 2023, GCU faced “a $37.7 million fine brought by the federal government over allegations that it lied to students about the cost of its programs.” The school had filed an appeal the following month but was informed that a hearing wasn’t expected to take place until January 2025. As a result, GCU President Brian Mueller had his hands full trying to clear the air of these matters, especially after Education Secretary Miguel Cardona “vowed” he would shut down his university.

Around that same time, Cardona tried to fine Liberty University as well. The House Appropriations Committee caught wind of the targeting, and in April, they held a hearing regarding the administration’s decision to “crack down on GCU and other universities like it.” However, after months of uncertainty about how this would affect the campus, GCU finally won its battle against Cardoza and Biden’s DOE.

Last week, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a 3-0 decision that the agency wrongfully denied nonprofit status to GCU. The ruling stated, “The Department invoked the wrong legal standards by relying on IRS regulations that impose requirements that go well beyond the [Higher Education Act’s] requirement and instead implement a portion of [law] that has no counterpart in the definition of the term ‘nonprofit’ set forth in HEA.”

It continued, “The correct HEA standards required the Department to determine (1) whether GCU was owned and operated by a nonprofit corporation, and (2) whether GCU satisfied the no-inurement requirement. Because the Department failed to apply the correct legal standards, the panel reversed the judgment of the district court, and remanded with instructions to set aside the Department’s denials and to remand to the Department for further proceedings.”

Mueller commented on the victory: “We saw it coming because of how the hearing went. And it was a [three]-judge panel. It was a unanimous decision. People try to make something political out of everything.” He also explained to Fox News Digital that the DOE “did not have the authority to deny our nonprofit status.”

The university also provided a statement, characterizing the ruling as a “significant win” for the school as well as a spotlight on how the DOE “acted unlawfully.” They added that the decision was “a long-awaited correction to the Department’s unlawful application of a standard that improperly denied GCU of its nonprofit status, and we are hopeful for a quick affirmation of the university as a nonprofit institution.”

As Arielle Del Turco, director of Family Research Council’s Center for Religious Liberty, commented to The Washington Stand, “This is a good decision by the court. While it remains unclear why GCU was targeted for unfair treatment by the Department of Education, it will be good to see this issue rectified. Christian institutions, including universities, should not face discrimination by federal government bureaucracies.”

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.



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