Baylor University Funds Program Pushing Gun Control Agenda

Baylor University is one of the largest Christian colleges in the United States. As a Christian college, there are certain things some might expect from them with regard to how they interact with the world at large. As many Christians in this country tend to be conservative and thus pro-gun, they would expect a Christian college to share those sentiments. At the very least, they’d want them to not work against those sentiments.

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Unfortunately, Baylor is doing just that.

Baylor University’s Children’s Defense Fund Freedom School summer literacy program is apparently being used to promote a leftist agenda among local children, some of whom are as young as 11-years-old.

According to the university’s website, the program “is a partnership between Baylor School of Education, Waco ISD and Transformation Waco, Prosper Waco, and the City of Waco,” which promotes “social action” and “character building.” Further, the students “are exposed to culturally relevant books and meet with community guests to learn how to be agents of change in their local areas.”

But what exactly is the social action the university is promoting? It appears it’s the same leftist agenda promoted by the Children’s Defense Fund.

On their website, they call for restrictive gun control measures and use children as political props in their anti-gun crusade. This is supported by an article on Baylor’s own website, which states that students “were presented topics surrounding issues that affect children…. [including] education, health care, and gun violence.” Just last week, Freedom School students participated in a university-sponsored National Day of Social Action protest against gun rights.

This is clearly something that a lot of people won’t notice without digging a little deeper. It’s easy to look at it as just a summer literacy program with a social side to it, meaning that it’s not just about reading but also how reading and books have an impact. That is unless you actually look at what the Children’s Defense Fund actually calls for.

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The group advances a wide variety of leftist policies including calls for gun control.

In other words, this is a group that seeks to indoctrinate children to be anti-gun under the guise of promoting literacy and they’re using Baylor University, among others, to fund it.

However, there’s a problem.

You see, Children’s Defense Fund claims to be a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. That means they have to adhere to certain rules regarding non-profits if they’re going to operate under those rules. That includes this particular bit per the IRS.

Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity.  Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes.

Certain activities or expenditures may not be prohibited depending on the facts and circumstances.  For example, certain voter education activities (including presenting public forums and publishing voter education guides) conducted in a non-partisan manner do not constitute prohibited political campaign activity. In addition, other activities intended to encourage people to participate in the electoral process, such as voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives, would not be prohibited political campaign activity if conducted in a non-partisan manner.

On the other hand, voter education or registration activities with evidence of bias that (a) would favor one candidate over another; (b) oppose a candidate in some manner; or (c) have the effect of favoring a candidate or group of candidates, will constitute prohibited participation or intervention.

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It’s hard to argue that coordinated anti-gun demonstrations throughout the nation such as those which took place last week don’t indicate the organization favors certain politicians or groups of politicians over others.

Also, as the vice-chairman of Baylor Young Conservatives of Texas, Grant Hillman, told The College Fix, “It is surprising that a university that self-identifies as [Christian] would be directly participating in teaching young children values that are so clearly contradictory of those in the Bible. Furthermore, the reading materials in this program are undeniably political. …My left-leaning public school in California wasn’t even this bad.”

In other words, it’s a blatantly partisan organization that seeks to indoctrinate young children into a particular ideology. While most of those students won’t be political as they age, they’ll still have those lessons stuck in their mind, lessons that likely will inform their votes as they grow older.

That’s a violation of their 501(c)(3) status and it’s high time they get called on it.

While Baylor is backstepping just a bit from what transpired, the Children’s Defense Fund Freedom Schools will continue to exist and indoctrinate America’s youth with an anti-gun message unless they’re stopped. Maybe it’s time for that to happen.

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