Hidden In The Handbook

Christian Colleges Discriminate Using Legal Loopholes

Sarah Zang hoped to escape her highly controlled home life in 2006.

She enrolled as a student at Liberty University in Virginia. She looked forward to making her own decisions, free of her parents' strict rules. Liberty University, a Christian college, seemed like the perfect haven, promising safety and a community that shared her values.

Zang remembers Liberty advertising as a paradise for finding yourself through “spiritual formation” while receiving a quality education. She had no reason to believe she would face any prejudice. 

Liberty University promises that in the face of discrimination or harassment, they’ll provide you “a safe, supportive, and neutral process to walk through with trained staff to help you understand your rights and options.”

But instead, Zang says Liberty was dangerous, discouraging, and discriminatory. 

Zang recalls that she hadn’t even been a student for a year when she survived a sexual assault from another student. Seeking help, she faced obstacles at every turn. The local hospital refused to conduct a rape kit because she used the bathroom, and 911 refused to help without a rape kit. Then, Zang faced a completely unexpected challenge—she discovered she was pregnant. She remembers being 17 at the time of the assault and 18 when she first missed her period. Already traumatized, Zang also feared punishment. 

Liberty University’s honor code, which appears to apply only to students and is named “The Liberty Way,” prohibits all sexual relations outside of heterosexual marriage, bans any romantic displays of affection with the same sex, and forces students to conform to one's assigned birth sex. 

This month, the Department of Education fined Liberty University $14 million for failing to comply with the Clery Act, which requires schools to disclose campus crime statistics and implement safety procedures. The settlement also requires Liberty to improve campus safety and ensure these violations don't happen again.

Liberty University did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story.

Liberty is not a unique case when it comes to how some institutions interpret and implement their religious freedom. They are just one of many colleges that host strict cultures where students are required to follow extra orders and sacrifice some of their rights.

My exclusive analysis of handbooks and codes of conduct from over 180 Christian colleges affiliated with the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU), one of the nation’s largest Christian higher education organizations, shows how student expectations at religious schools go far beyond academics. 

Students at South Baptist University in Missouri “should not enter into divorce except under the most severe circumstances and then only after pursuing all possible options.” At Southwestern Christian University in Oklahoma, “distressed pant alterations must be below mid-thigh.” New Ulm, Minnesota's Martin Luther College “requires students to inform the Vice President for Student Life when they have entered an engagement or have made official plans to be married.”

Handbooks at more than half of the 143 U.S. institutions associated with CCCU explicitly forbid premarital sex. Even more of these colleges ban same-sex relationships. Transgender expression is categorically prohibited at slightly fewer colleges, but that landscape is rapidly changing.

The ones that don’t explicitly ban sex do so implicitly. More than two-thirds of these colleges insist on marriage being exclusively between one man and one woman, stating or implying anything outside of that is unacceptable at these schools. 

Of all the U.S. colleges I researched, only three allude to some vague support for gay students and/or assure safety and equality for them on campus.

---

The Legal Loophole

In the aftermath of Zang's assault and subsequent pregnancy, she recalls her peers judging and blaming her for ‘having sex” even though she was raped.

The trauma was compounded by her resident advisor and prayer group members, who she alleges subjected her to interrogations and forcibly went through her social media and texts after they heard about her “having sex.” She remembers being blamed for what happened to her, with peers portraying her as a “sinner,” rather than a survivor in need of empathy.

“I was a dangerous woman at that point," she says, explaining that her attempts to disclose the assault to peers were met with skepticism and an unwarranted assumption of guilt. She didn’t want to tell anyone, for good reason. Zang says that when school officials found out she was pregnant, she was shamed because of her pregnancy, which to them meant she had “sex before marriage.” That is considered a sin by most Christians and prohibited in Liberty’s honor code. 

Christian universities can make rules that don’t follow Title IX, a federal law that prohibits discrimination. Originally meant to give women equal access to classes and extracurricular programs, Title IX historically faced opposition from Christian schools partially due to their belief that women should not be pastors. The religious exemption, based on the First Amendment, allows these colleges to have policies that discriminate based on gender and sexual orientation. But there are no clear lines about exactly what this means. 

“The sexual harassment issue, there are no exemptions for that,” said Keith Altman, the founder of K Altman Law, a national law firm that specializes in student defense and complex litigation. He has represented clients from both secular and Christian Universities, often finding the latter much more challenging. “They must enforce Title IX with respect to sexual harassment.” 

Altman explains that no school could have a rule where every woman has to show up to class in her underwear. But the opposite, clothing that covers every bit of skin, is more likely to be legal because it’s not considered a rule that harasses women. 

While Title IX lets students complain about discrimination and sexual harassment, Christian colleges use a religious exemption to get around it. The process lets schools use student complaints to their Title IX coordinator against students if they break their rules. The student's identity may not stay confidential if they complain straight to the government, as the school has to be told about the complaint. This puts students at risk of facing consequences from the school. 

But that gets dicey. 

According to Altman, complaints should stay confidential within a school’s Title IX office because of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), a law protecting student privacy. However, students might waive that right if a private college’s handbook states otherwise. 

No two Christian handbooks look exactly alike. Some are more explicit in what they ban and how students should file complaints, while others are incredibly vague and confusing. Either way can get problematic according to Altman.

“Is the school handbook part of a contract between the student and the school?” Altman posed. “Most of them say no when you try to go after them because you claim the school violated the handbook somehow. They actually argue, almost exclusively, that it's not binding on them. It's like they basically do whatever they want.”

---

Punished For Pregnancy

When news of Zang’s pregnancy spread, she detailed that her rapist attempted to coerce her into an abortion and physically assaulted her, in what she describes as an “attempt to kill the baby.”

Despite the evident danger, she felt the college authorities turned a blind eye to the beating, focusing instead on monitoring Zang's movements. She says she was constantly surveilled on campus, even by her resident assistant back at her dorm.

“The idea that I might abort this baby was enough to have somebody watch me for the rest of my time at school,” she said. “24/7." 

When Liberty University finally did intervene, it demanded a blood draw to confirm pregnancy. 

While there are plenty of arguments about whether being anti-abortion is a religious right, pregnancy policies at Christian colleges do more than merely state a position.

Kentucky Christian University mandates counseling and assigns mentorship to students facing pregnancies “outside biblical guidelines,” with dismissal for “continued misconduct.” Female students are barred from dormitories during the semester of an expected birth, and abortion is prohibited. Taylor University, a 2000-person college in Indiana, requires pregnant students who aren’t married to receive regular prenatal care, counseling, and have residence restrictions during the third trimester, explicitly encouraging women to live with parents and “reserve[s] the right” to involve parents in whatever way it deems fit. 

Then there’s Southern Nazarene University (SNU), a 200-acre campus in Bethany, Oklahoma. 

SNU enforces strict procedures for single students with unexpected pregnancies. Notifications must be made to the Director of Residence Life. A urine test at the University Health Center is required to confirm pregnancy. Evidence of regular prenatal care is demanded, and a student must notify the Associate Vice President of Student Success for academic support. Within 10 days, documentation from an ObGyn estimating pregnancy progress must be submitted.

Students must sign a liability waiver relieving the university of responsibility for complications, miscarriage, abortion, or pregnancy-related injury.

Intrusive oversight of unexpected pregnancies, including mandatory medical procedures and liability waivers, would breach privacy and reproductive rights, and violate Title IX protections regarding pregnant students, at secular colleges. However Christian colleges continue to take full advantage of their religious freedom.

“There are no absolutes on any of this,” Altman explained. “These exemptions become a real problem because they're somewhat arbitrary.”

He detailed that so many factors go into the legality of each potential discrimination case, including what state the school is in, whether a policy changes after a student is already enrolled, and even if a student changes gender while in college. No matter whether a school is very detailed in its policies, or extremely vague, the exemptions can cause hoards of legal issues. 

Legality aside, there is a psychological impact from these rules. 

Erica Smith, a seasoned sex educator, specializes in coaching individuals emerging from high-demand or high-control religious environments. She has worked with young women and LGBTQ+ youth in Philadelphia's juvenile justice system, worked in HIV prevention, supported adults with no previous sex education, and helped those who have escaped cults with restrictions on sexual activity. 

While the policies related to pregnancy at Christian colleges may fit within an anti-abortion set of ethics, this is still an overreach and counter-productive to both sexual and mental health, according to Smith.

“I don't think there should be policies about consensual sex among adults at all, including whether or not people are married, or whether or not people are pregnant,” she said. 

Smith herself went to Penn State University. “College was a time of spreading our wings, having sex when we felt we wanted to,” she said. “It doesn't mean bad things didn't happen, but we got to make those choices for ourselves.”

Christian colleges seem to be opposed to that philosophy.

Liberty University's “Points and Violations” system imposes strict regulations on student conduct, encompassing trivial infractions like being late to chapel, dress code violations, and absences from mandatory meetings, with penalties escalating based on how severe they deem the offense. In Liberty’s world, being gay or having premarital sex can result in the same amount of points, fines, or community service as violating its weapons policy, getting an abortion, or sexual harassment.

When Zang became pregnant, she says it resulted in Liberty’s maximum penalty of 30 points, or “reps” as students called them, short for “reprimands.” The more “reps” you accrued for failing to follow “The Liberty Way,” the more fines or community service you faced. Zang’s punishment was for “sexual immorality.”

She says her rapist received fewer points than she did. 

“I'm not sure what they asked him and what he admitted to,” she said. “He got 20 reps and just sold snacks at two hockey games…and then was cured,” she added sarcastically. 

---

Disciplined For Dress

Before her rape, Zang also received 20 points for violating “The Liberty Way.” Her crime? Wearing shorts. 

She faced ongoing reprimands at the university for clothing issues, mostly due to her being six feet tall. When she wore athletic shorts, some of which were Liberty University branded, purchased from their bookstore, they were deemed too short. To Liberty, that meant she was immodest. 

Many Christian colleges have similarly strict dress codes. 

Oklahoma Christian University states that “students should wear clothing that has an appropriate neckline that is not revealing or indecent at any time. This would include shirts that are too loose, too low cut or too tight, making them inappropriate or calling undue attention to any area of the body.”

Faulkner University prohibits halter-tops, spaghetti straps, crop tops, racer-backs, undergarment tank tops, strapless items, and any revealing garments. The dress code extends to skirts and dresses, restricting any form-fitting clothing, including very specific rules about when you can wear leggings. Shorts must fall mid-thigh while sitting, and athletic shorts are allowed only for approved athletic events. 

Johnson University in Tennessee allows piercings but restricts jewelry that they consider “extreme displays,” and Ohio Christian University imposes a limit of one nose ring, prohibits gauged earrings, regulates facial hair for men, and forbids "unnatural" hair colors or “extreme” styles.

The list goes on. 

Smith highlights that dress codes perpetuate the notion that women are responsible for others' lustful thoughts and reinforce restrictive attitudes. Many of Smith’s clients will admit, ‘Now that I can make my own decisions about clothes, I don't even know what to wear. I might be 35 years old and still feel like a slut if I wear a pair of shorts.’

For many students in these environments, strict dress codes began before they enrolled in college.

Dr. Emily Grad is an expert in educational psychology and passionate about fostering comprehensive education for adolescents, with a particular focus on LGBTQ+ youth and international students.

She also once served as a dean of students at a conservative catholic high school, where she was responsible for enforcing dress codes while advocating for students. She describes her time as “horrific,” observing the challenges of being a queer student in a Christian school.

“Some people might be like, ‘Just dress professionally,’” Grad explained, “But, if that is where they feel oppressed in their personhood, they can't fully have confidence, and that is going to affect [their] mindset when [they] come into a classroom.”

Grad would argue that dress codes can be a form of discrimination when they disproportionately target specific groups based on factors such as gender, race, religion, or cultural background. For instance, if a dress code enforces gender-specific clothing norms, it may contribute to the reinforcement of traditional stereotypes and unfairly restrict the expression of individuals who do not conform to stereotypical gender roles or identity.

Grad said that, as she worked in both evangelical and catholic institutions, conservative religious settings often deviated from what she sees as the core values of Christianity. Namely, love for God, others, and self. Instead she sees these rules centering on what she calls "crotch theology." 

---

Pressured To Be ‘Pure’

Grad elaborated that “crotch theology” is shorthand for “anti-gay, anti-abortion, and anti-promiscuity” Christian ethics. In other words, there are too many rules about one’s crotch. 

She credits Skye Jethani, a pastor, award-winning author, and co-host of the Holy Post podcast with coining the term. The premise is that evangelicals in the U.S. have a myopic focus on gender, marriage, and sexuality, sidelining more classically understood teachings of Jesus and more historically consistent Christian virtues. 

This claim is not unfounded. Nine of the colleges I looked at specifically mention “genitalia” and were quite graphic in explaining exactly what was forbidden. 

This obsession with controlling people’s sex life is described by many as “purity culture.”

Smith regularly coaches Christian college survivors, many of whom have tragic stories similar to Zang’s, through her “Purity Culture Dropout Program.”

“When we talk about purity culture these days, we are typically talking about the American Christian evangelical movement that had a whole industry behind it, " Erica Smith explained. “People signing purity pledges, getting purity rings, and going to purity weekends.”

These practices were popular in churches in the late 90s and early 00s, which were packaged as a “cool” way to promise abstinence from sexual activity until marriage. Even the Jonas Brothers participated.

Smith argued that ”purity culture” is discriminatory as it often enforces strict and biased standards around sexual behavior, disproportionately affecting individuals who are not cisgender males, perpetuating harmful stereotypes, and creating a judgmental environment that stifles normal sexual desires.

But it’s not just about sex.

Christian universities often regulate public displays of affection with specific guidelines; for instance, Southern Adventist University in Tennessee prohibits "intimate touching" and "prolonged kissing," while Colorado Christian University “reserves the right” to define acceptable affection both on and off-campus. Life Pacific University in California explicitly forbids “heavy kissing and groping,” in both public and private settings.

At least fifteen Christian colleges in the United States, benefiting from religious exemptions, explicitly equate consensual sexual behaviors with perversions like bestiality and incest. This poses legal questions, as Title IX explicitly differentiates between consent and non-consent, and Christian colleges receiving federal funding are not exempt from Title IX rules on sexual assault and harassment.

One example is Plainview, Texas’s Wayland Baptist University. Their handbook lumps consensual pre-marital sex with sexual assault and incest in what they ban. Another example is Florida’s Warner University. It states that “we believe that any form of sexual immorality (including adultery, fornication, homosexual behavior, bisexual conduct, bestiality, polyamory, incest, or the use of pornography) is sinful and offensive to God.”

These harsh views of consensual sex are systemic, according to Grad.

She believes that Christian universities set strict rules based on their narrow interpretation of scripture, but will still enroll any students they can for financial benefit. This leads to students being left with little option other than to leave their college if they discover they’re queer or would like to engage in any otherwise normal sexual activity.

That pressure to be “pure” tortured Zang, especially when she felt like a sinner after the rape.

“That kind of group messaging, especially around issues like sexual identity, was so harmful,” she said. “It led to so many mental health issues, led to PTSD, and all of these other things that I'm still working through.”

---

Free Speech is Forbidden

These colleges don’t have rules just for your body; it’s also for your mind. 

Numerous institutions, like Baylor University in Texas, impose bans on advocating for differing sexual ethics than their handbook. Students engaging in any pro-queer advocacy are subject to disciplinary action. While California's "Leonard's Law" protects free speech at private colleges, it stands as the sole state in providing such safeguards. 

Christian colleges such as Clarks Summit University, Mississippi College, Regent University, and Walla Walla University exercise control over their students, ranging from rules about married students’ sex lives, the use of profanity on or off-campus, and even regulating dietary choices. Oral Roberts University, one of the larger Christian universities, with over 5000 students, compels students to sign a pledge acknowledging the university's authority to kick out a student for any behavior they don’t like, stating: "I understand that the University reserves the right to require the withdrawal of a student at any time."

“There is no free speech issue with private entities,” said Altman. They are allowed to have restrictive rules on how their students act and talk. But Altman made clear that no college can throw a student out for just anything. 

There’s also Title VI, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin. 

That wasn’t always the case. 

In the historic case of Bob Jones University v. United States, the IRS revoked the school's tax-exempt status due to its racial discrimination. The Supreme Court sided with the IRS, setting a precedent for government intervention in religious institutions' discriminatory practices and establishing limits on religious freedom when conflicting with essential societal interests. Bob Jones’ policy no longer discriminates against non-whites, but, like many Christian colleges, it still uses religious exemptions to discriminate based on sex, gender, and orientation. 

Currently, the Hunter v. Department of Education lawsuit, filed in 2021, involved former religious school students challenging how Title IX is interpreted at these schools. Plaintiffs claimed the Department enabled Christian colleges to discriminate against LGBTQ students without clarity. In January 2023, a federal judge dismissed the case, citing a lack of evidence that it was the Department of Education’s Title IX interpretation that was arbitrary. The case is being appealed.

The government intervened before when they determined Bob Jones University discriminated too much. Religious freedom, as outlined in Christian college handbooks, involves regulations affecting students' personal lives. Over half a million students at Christian colleges are subject to environments similar to Zang's, and she feels there hasn’t been any improvement since she was a student. 

After remaining silent about her story for so long, Zang is motivated to share her experiences to combat the isolation survivors often feel in oppressive systems. She urges people to forgive themselves for things that were never their fault. She emphasizes that shame and anxiety are rooted in a false narrative. 

“You can have all of these ‘sexual misconducts,’ she said almost laughing, “and [later] have a loving, committed, happy relationship and you'll be okay.’

She continued, “If one other person hears that and doesn't feel the way I was feeling… if I could help today, that would be enough,” she smiled. “You're not alone.” 

---

If you’d like to see my entire analysis of 185 Christian colleges, you can read it here:

If you’d like to learn more about the lawsuit against the Department of Education you can read my story here: