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President Falwell appears on PBS NewsHour to address free speech on college campuses

Fresh off a visit to the White House on Thursday to witness President Donald Trump sign an executive order that would defund research grants to colleges that don’t support free speech on their campuses, Liberty University President Jerry Falwell was a special guest on PBS NewsHour. He was joined by Sanford Ungar, head of the Free Speech Project at Georgetown University.

The discussion centered on whether or not conservative voices are less supported on college campuses and are held to a different standard than their counterparts.

“It can’t be argued that the vast majority of the faculty and staff at most elitist universities are one-sided in their viewpoints — and it’s the liberal side,” Falwell said, pointing out a statistic given by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who said in a Commencement speech at Harvard that 96 percent of faculty and staff at Ivy Leagues schools donated to the Obama campaign. “How that translates into whether or not they allow free speech, you hear examples all the time of how conservative ideas are just not given the same respect that liberal ideas are given.”

Falwell spoke in support of Trump’s order and cited how Liberty is an example of a university that has given guests with different political ideologies a platform, including Friday’s Convocation speaker, Alan Dershowitz. Liberty’s Commencement speaker last year was former President Jimmy Carter. In 2014, Liberty hosted presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.

“Bernie Sanders was given the utmost respect by our students, even though most students didn’t agree with him,” Falwell said.

Ungar agreed, adding “That’s the way it ought to be; there ought to be ideological diversity on campus.”

Falwell also addressed federal student loans, which Trump spoke about in his speech.

“I think the bigger problem is the federal student loan issue … I think the president is going to go a step further very soon and try to single out the bad actors who have gone out of business, who have not given their students the education they promised.”

Earlier this month, Liberty extended a warm welcome to Argosy University students who were displaced due to Argosy’s abrupt shutdown after the misuse of federal funds. (For more information, visit a special webpage for Argosy transfers at www.luonline.com/argosy.)

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