Christian students are pushing back — and universities are cracking

As one of the last conservative Christians serving as a tenured philosophy professor at a public university, I’ve had a front-row seat to the intellectual circus that critical theory and intersectionality have unleashed on higher education. I call it out on X and Substack. Professors from ASU’s Barrett Honors College and English Department have attacked me for doing so, calling me a “joke” and a “sloppy thinker.” This is the abuse anyone receives for defending God’s word.

But something new — and encouraging — is happening.

Christian students are speaking up. They are filing complaints. They openly quote Scripture in their assignments. And in this case, the university backed down.

Students are calling it out, too.

Last week at the University of Oklahoma, two instructors were removed for blatant viewpoint discrimination against a Christian student. If even 5% of cases like this see daylight, the DEI structure will start to crack within the academic year. If the polls are right, 97% of faculty identify as left or far left. What we see now — open disdain for Scripture — is not an anomaly. It’s the visible edge of a worldview that has captured entire campuses.

Beneath the surface sits the full intersectional framework, built on one central assumption: Christianity is the axle around which oppression supposedly turns.

The assignment that exposed the bias

The student’s psychology assignment was simple: a 650-word response to a study about gender norms and bullying among middle-schoolers.

She wrote: “Society pushing the lie that there are multiple genders and everyone should be whatever they want to be is demonic and severely harms American youth.”

She grounded her argument in Genesis, explained God’s creation of male and female, and correctly defined ezer kenegdo as “a helper equal to man.”

In short, she used: Scripture, theology, linguistic analysis, and a historical ethical framework. That is a well-reasoned paper in the humanities. Except when the worldview is Christian.

The instructor’s response?

“Your reaction paper contradicts itself, uses personal ideology over empirical evidence, and is at times offensive.”

And then the tell: “Every major psychological, medical, pediatric, and psychiatric association acknowledges that sex and gender is neither binary nor fixed.”

This is false. No serious biology text claims human sex is nonbinary. Disorders of development exist, but disorders do not replace design.

The deeper problem stood out like a vegan at a Texas barbecue: The Bible does not count as evidence. Even if the rubric justified deductions, dismissing Scripture as “personal ideology” exposed the bias.

Quote Judith Butler or Michel Foucault, and the academy nods solemnly. Quote the Bible, and you lose points.

The modern university’s dogma is simple: The Bible is never admissible. Everything else is.

Christians have known this for decades and quietly self-censored to protect their grades and academic futures. Which raises the question: How did we arrive here?

How we got here

Hostility toward Christianity did not appear overnight. It grew slowly through deliberate gatekeeping. Hiring committees screened out conservatives, shaping departments where 90%-97% of faculty became ideological clones. Administrators learned to view biblical faith as bigotry. DEI offices began to enforce viewpoint discrimination while denying it.

Fair hiring does not produce a 97% monoculture. That is ideological capture.

Christians allowed it because they confused niceness with faithfulness. Niceness — a word that never appears in Scripture — is fear disguised as virtue. It keeps people quiet so they can stay liked.

The left used a strategy straight from Marx, who took it straight from the enemy (“devil,” meaning accuser): Accuse Christians of oppression; rewrite history so the West is defined by its sins, never its virtues; demonize Scripture and its adherents; and weaponize shame to silence dissent.

It worked — for a time. The spell is breaking.

No neutrality

Many Christians assumed universities were neutral. They aren’t. They never were.

Every institution aligns with one of two cities: “the City of God” and “the City of Man.”

The City of Man controls the universities. This is not hyperbole. Romans 1 describes it plainly.

Those who reject God do not become neutral observers. They become evangelists for a rival religion. That rival religion has doctrines:

• The Bible is oppressive.
• Christianity is harmful.
• Gender is unlimited.
• Identity is self-created.
• The highest good is “authenticity.”
• The greatest sin is disagreement.

A new orthodoxy rules the campus, and the Oklahoma student violated it — praise God that she did.

Something has changed

Christian students are not taking the abuse quietly any more. They are speaking up. They are filing complaints. They are quoting Scripture openly in their assignments. And in this case, the university backed down. The instructors were removed.

Even on a left-dominated campus, viewpoint discrimination remains illegal — even if DEI treats it as sacred ritual.

If this continues, the monopoly may begin to break — maybe even by spring break.

RELATED: Why the kids are not all right — and Boomers still pretend nothing’s wrong

Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images

What you can do

As someone inside the system, here is my advice.

Follow those speaking publicly. We are few, but we are here — and we are not silent.

Equip your children. They will face hostility. They will be mocked. They will be graded down unless they can respond intelligently. Ask pointed questions on campus tours. Get administrators on record renouncing DEI discrimination — then hold them to it.

Consider alternatives. Trade schools, Christian colleges, apprenticeships, online programs — all viable. Many offer a serious education without forcing students through gender theory with Judith Butler 101. Seek professors who teach the great works with a biblical foundation.

Speak boldly. The gospel is not a whisper. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel,” the Apostle Paul writes in Romans, “for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.”

Christian students are rediscovering that courage. It is long past time the rest of us did, too.