Wyoming Catholics stay off the federal aid reservation

Wyoming Catholic College (WCC) has decided to forgo Title IV federal funding in order to protect its commitment to Roman Catholic teaching. In doing so, the small and young college has made a daring decision, but perhaps that’s to be expected of a liberal arts college that requires every student to learn horsemanship and outdoor skills.

As a result of the decision, no students will be eligible for federal funds to finance their education. But the college sees the financial loss as a spiritual win, freeing WCC from possible, future difficulties with the federal government.

In a video address, college President Kevin Roberts identified Catholic sexual teaching as the primary source of possible conflict. Catholics believe that “all of us should lead chaste lives, regardless of our natural attractions,” he said. This position prevents WCC from hiring LGBT faculty or staff, a decision becoming increasingly fraught with political and legal challenges. (Take, for example, George Fox University’s recent struggle with its policy toward transgendered students.)

Accepting federal funds opens a Christian university to charges of discrimination, because only universities that receive federal funds—either directly or indirectly, through their students—fall under the purview of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR). Not taking federal funds keeps WCC free of this oversight.

In his announcement, Roberts affirmed institutions, even Catholic ones, that do take federal funds, saying if WCC had been established decades ago, the college could have made a different decision.

“What is different in our case is timing,” he said. Not taking federal funds now “allows us to practice our Catholic faith without qualifying it,” he told The New York Times. “It’s clear that this administration does not care about Catholic teaching.”

Such unabashed rigor plays out in WCC’s attitude in other areas. It requires transfer students to start over as freshmen. It also declines to accept any students with disabilities who cannot participate in the outdoor component of the curriculum, a supplemental reason for WCC’s reluctance to participate in federal loan programs. The OCR forbids colleges that get federal funds from refusing to admit disabled students, as long as they meet other “essential requirements for admission.” WCC maintains being able to participate fully in outdoor activities is “an integral part of the college’s academic program,” but not taking federal funds makes conflict about this issue less likely, too.

Overall, WCC looks to the political climate for its decision, a key concern being the conflict between Catholic moral teaching and the Obama administration’s activism on behalf of LGBT people. One anonymous Catholic blogger applauded the school’s decision, saying, “We’re soon to be back to the catacombs, at least figuratively, unable to participate in increasing numbers of activities that should be due any decent citizen in a truly free society.”