Jerry Falwell Jr., former president of Liberty University, spent millions of the nonprofit organization's funding on Republican candidates and causes, including President Donald Trump's reelection campaign, Politico reports.
Falwell used a think tank he co-founded with GOP activist Charlie Kirk called the Falkirk Center to purchase ads on Facebook during campaign season, including at least $50,000 of what was designated as political ads promoting Trump and other Republicans. The center also hosted a two-day conference on China policy at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., that only featured Republican officials and allies of the president.
"The Falkirk Center, to me, represents everything that was wrong with Liberty when Jerry [Falwell] was there," said former Liberty professor Karen Swallow Prior, who left following the end of the last school year after more than two decades at the school. "It's brazenly partisan."
"The apparatus of the university has turned more and more towards political ends and concerns," said Marybeth Baggett, a Liberty graduate and former professor at the school from 2003 until last spring. "Obviously the school is conservative, yes. But I don't feel like it was ever so agenda-driven as it was in the last four of five years."
Falwell resigned from his leadership position at the school last August following reports that detailed his and his wife's personal lives.
Politico's sources claim that the university's board of trustees are "split" over how to approach the organization's role in conservative politics, with one person saying that on one side, "there are those who want the school to be part of the conservative political conversation," and on the other are those who "don't think it helps the school in maintaining a high academic standard. You can't really call something a think tank, and yet it doesn't put out academic research, or papers, or any kind of scholarship."
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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