CAMPUS

Update on Stimulus Bill Provision

The latest version of the stimulus bill currently worming its way through Congress doesn’t include funds for renovating college buildings. That means the provision excluding such funds from being used on religious buildings on campuses, which I wrote about in my last blog post, has also been nixed. From Inside Higher Ed:

Among the biggest changes for higher education is the outright elimination of a $3.5 billion “higher education facilities modernization fund” designed to be divided among states to finance renovations of “shovel ready” campus buildings (the House bill contains $6 billion for such a fund). College officials, anticipating the injection of funds, have been dusting off proposals for facilities that have gone wanting because their states couldn’t finance them or they couldn’t raise outside money for them.

Which must be very sad news for college administrators, but at least religious students don’t have to worry about being kicked out of buildings. David French over at Phi Beta Cons explains very clearly why the provision was troublesome to many:

Here’s how the prohibition might work in the real world: A university dusts off an old modernization project for a large and aging classroom building. Prior to submitting its funding proposal to the government, the university counsel’s office works to ensure that the building complies with all applicable regulations, and in so doing finds that a Christian student group uses the building for its Friday-night Bible study. This is clearly “use” of the building for “sectarian instruction,” so—to be on the safe side, since millions of dollars are at stake—he issues a notice that the group move its activities to another building. The process is repeated as other buildings are made eligible for funding.

We appear to be in the clear for now, but there’s no telling how the stimulus package will end up in its final form after countless rounds of compromises and revisions. The provision could get slipped back in or appear in some other form. Who knows? This is the federal government we’re talking about, after all.

Hat tip to FIRE.