college

The Twist of the Praying Whiskey Titan

The story of Raj Peter Bhakta recalls the old saying that “politics makes strange bedfellows.” 

Born in Philadelphia to an Irish mother and Indian father, Raj studied economics and finance, got his start in investment banking, and later appeared as a contestant on the second season of The Apprentice. He ran and lost a bid for Congress, was arrested twice for drunk driving, and garnered plenty of publicity for illegally crossing the United States/Mexico border, while riding an elephant and lumbering alongside a mariachi band.

The stunt was intended to call attention to the porous border-mission accomplished.

In 2007, Bhakta founded a whiskey company. He was later forced out and started a second one in 2019.

A Catholic, Raj Peter Bhakta has recently announced plans to donate a $200 million college campus that he bought in Poultney, Vermont, to a yet-to-be-identified faith-based buyer who agrees to use the space for “the [spiritual] revival of our country and our civilization.”

The entrepreneur bought the 155-acre campus of Green Mountain College, a historic school founded in 1834 and closed in 2019. 

He told Fox News, “I bought this place, and then quickly learned that starting a college was a little bit more complicated than I had originally envisioned, especially while starting a new spirit startup. There’s a deeper, more fundamental need in this country, and that is to go back to our Christian roots.”

At this point, it’s unclear whether a Christian college, parachurch ministry or organization is best positioned to appeal to the whiskey mogul. Bhakta reserves the right to accept or reject proposals, but he’s made clear his main objective.

“We’ve had two great awakenings in this country before, and I think we’re at the dawn, God willing, of a third great awakening,” he reflected.

Scholars will debate the actual number of such revivals, especially since the Holy Spirit has moved in significant ways in North America even before the country was technically founded. By God’s grace, growing spiritual interest continues to spike anywhere and sometimes seemingly everywhere. The Lord can and does move whenever and wherever He is called on.

Bhakta suggests that it’s only by God’s grace that revival will come and that it’s something “worth fighting for.”

He added:

“We know that mankind’s greatest achievements flow from humility and service, and that humility and service lie at the heart of our destinies.”

From Moses and David to Gideon to Peter and Paul, God has used unlikely people to accomplish His purposes. At times they’ve been reluctant, overlooked, weak, and inadequate. Other times, such as with the apostles Peter and Paul, they’ve been brash and hot-tempered. 

The fate of the Green Mountain College property brings to mind Glen Eyrie, home of our friends at The Navigators, the international interdenominational Christian discipleship ministry located here in Colorado Springs. Their beautiful 700-plus-acre campus was originally the home of General William Jackson Palmer, the founder of Colorado Springs.

Nestled beside Garden of the Gods Park, the crowning jewel of the property is the Glen Eyrie Castle, a structure Palmer built for his wife. The property eventually landed in the hands of a private owner. Back in the 1950s, the owner decided to sell, but realized that with such a high capital gains tax, most of the proceeds would go to the government. To prevent that from happening, he sold it at a huge discount to The Navigators. 

Please join us in praying for the next owner of the Green Mountain College campus and that their efforts will help lead to Christian revival in America.

Harvard Antisemitism Could Cost It $8.9 Billion, Feds Say

Harvard could lose more than $8.9 billion in government grants and contracts pending a federal investigation into campus antisemitism and civil rights violations.

In a letter notifying the university of the review, representatives of the federal government’s Joint Task Force Combatting Antisemitism wrote:

U.S. taxpayers invest enormously in U.S. colleges and universities, including Harvard University. These funds are an investment and, like any investment, are based on the recipient’s performance, not owed as a matter of custom or right.

To maintain its “financial relationship with the United States government,” the letter continues, Harvard must make critical reforms, including:

  • Banning masks on campus, which will prevent protesters from covering their faces.
  • Clarifying and enforcing rules about when, where and how students can protest.
  • Disciplining students who have committed antisemitic violations of school rules.  
  • Adopting “merit-based” hiring and admissions policies, rather than selecting employees and students of certain races, sexes and ideological perspectives.
  • Cooperating with law enforcement to protect students’ safety.

The Joint Task Force Combatting Antisemitism (task force) coalesced in early February to enforce “Additional Measures to Combat Antisemitism,” an executive order directing the federal government to “vigorously, using all available and appropriate tools, prosecute, remove or otherwise hold to account perpetrators of unlawful antisemitic harassment and violence.”

In March, the task force canceled more than $400 million grants and contracts with Columbia University, citing its “appalling inaction” against campus antisemitism.

Catastrophic loss of funding proved an effective incentive for Columbia to address its toxic campus climate. Within a month, the school committed, in part, to:

  • Implement a “strict anti-masking policy” with punishments for violators.
  • Cooperate with the Department of Homeland Security regarding immigration and visa laws.
  • Beef up campus security and give them permission to eject hostile or unsafe protesters.
  • Complete disciplinary proceedings against protesters that participated in pro-Palestine demonstrations and encampments, like last year’s takeover of Hamilton Hall.
  • Increase thought diversity among staff.

On March 25, reports alleged acting president Katrina Armstrong told faculty Columbia would not stick to some of the commitments it made to task force. In just three days, Columbia’s Board of Trustees replaced her.

The task force applauded Columbia for its swift action in a statement, calling the change an “important step” in continuing negotiations to reestablish Columbia’s “financial relationship with the United States government.”

The threat of forfeiting billions of dollars has had a similarly salutary effect on Harvard. Just days after the task force announced its review, the college suspended the Palestine Solidarity Committee, a group that frequently mounts disruptive campus protests.

“Harvard College placed the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee on probation and banned the organization from hosting public events until July on Wednesday,” the Harvard Crimson reported last week, citing the group’s failure to comply with school protesting rules.

But administrative upheaval hasn’t alleviated antisemitism’s deep roots on campuses. In the first week of April alone, Columbia had to contend with three separate protest events, two of which required security to boot people from the property.

Harvard, meanwhile, is fielding frantic calls to “fight back” against the task force’s “threats” and outside organizations continue partnering with student groups to hold antisemitic demonstrations.

I’m reminded of a comment Secretary of Health and Human Services RFK Jr. made when Columbia first lost funding:

Antisemitism — like racism — is a spiritual and moral malady that sickens societies and kills people with lethalities comparable to history’s most deadly plagues. In recent years, censorship and false narratives have transformed our great universities into greenhouse for this deadly and virulent pestilence.

For years, campus faculty and administrators fed the sickness of antisemitism. Now, an astonishing number of students have been infected. Policy adjustments alone can’t cure them.

Radical ideological change is the only permanent solution — and that takes time. In the meantime, Harvard, Columbia and the rest of their ilk will be playing whack-a-mole with the destructive ideology they once embraced.

Additional Articles and Resources

Feds Yank $400 Million from Columbia University Following Continued Antisemitism

Antisemitism at Columbia Alive and Well

New York Drops Charges Against Pro-Hamas Protesters Who Stormed Hamilton Hall

INVESTIGATION: Who funds anti-Israel protests?

Jewish Students Urged to Flee Columbia University Following Antisemitic Protest

Antisemitism — What It Is and Its Connection to the Israel-Hamas War

Israel is Under Attack—Here’s Why Christians Should Support Its Defense

Feds Yank $400 Million from Columbia University Following Continued Antisemitism

Columbia University lost $400 million in government grants and contracts today for failing to address campus antisemitism, four federal agencies have announced.

“Universities must comply with all federal antidiscrimination laws if they are going to receive federal funding,” Linda McMahon, the Secretary of Education, wrote in a press release announcing the cuts, continuing:

For too long, Columbia has abandoned that obligation to Jewish students studying on its campus. Today, we demonstrate to Columbia and other universities that we will not tolerate their appalling inaction any longer.

The Department of Education (ED) is one of four federal departments, including the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) and the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Justice (DOJ), comprising the Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism (Task Force).

The group coalesced on February 3 to carry out “Additional Measures to Combat Antisemitism,” an executive order directing the federal government to “vigorously, using all available and appropriate tools, prosecute, remove or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful antisemitic harassment and violence.”

On Monday, the Task Force launched investigations into ten universities accused of Title IV civil rights complaints: Columbia, George Washington, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, New York, Northwestern, UCLA, U. of Minnesota and U. of Southern California.

It’s no surprise Columbia topped investigators’ list. Some of the most virulent acts of public antisemitism in the past year have occurred on its campus, including:

  • A “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” that frequently devolved into violence and sparked similar protests on campuses across the nation.
  • The “occupation” of Hamilton Hall, in which pro-Hamas students took over and vandalized a college building and assaulted employees inside. More than 200 people were subsequently arrested, though few experienced tangible consequences.
  • A museum-style exhibition celebrating Hamas. The two-day event included, among other horrors, a poetry reading “borrowing” from Yahya Sinwar, the deceased Hamas leader behind the October 7, 2023 massacre of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

The latter prompted two Jewish students, Shoshanna Aufzien and Alon Levin, to file a Title IV civil rights complaint against the school.

Title IV prohibits federally funded institutions and activities from discriminating based on race, color or national origin. These protections extend to the creation of “hostile environments,” which ED defines:

When a school staff, a student or another person engages in unwelcome conduct based on race, color or national origin that … is subjectively and objectively offensive and is so severe or pervasive that it limits or denies a person’s ability to participate in or benefit from the recipient’s education program or activity.

The environment at Columbia has remained decidedly hostile this year.

On January 21, the first day of the semester, two students busted into a History of Modern Israel class and distributed flyers showing a boot stomping on the Star of David.

Last week, on February 26, dozens of pro-Hamas protesters took over a building at Columbia-affiliated Barnard College. According to a college spokesperson, the protesters “physically assaulted” an employee in the building, leaving them hospitalized.

Two days ago, 200 students took over Barnard’s Milstein library, preventing people from entering and “chanting anti-Israel slogans through bullhorns,” The New York Post reports. The stunt left nine protesters in handcuffs. Four were Columbia students.

This latest in a long chain of violent, hateful protests seemed prompt the Task Force to chop Columbia’s federal funding. The group noted in its press release that, even after it began its investigation, “chaos and antisemitic harassment have continued on and near campus in the days since.”

The Task Force also foreshadowed further cuts into Columbia’s whopping $5 billion federal grant endowment.

“These [$400 million in] cancellations represent the first round of action and additional cancellations are expected to follow,” the press release reads, continuing,

President Trump has been clear that any college or university that allows illegal protests and repeatedly fails to protect students from anti-Semitic harassment on campus will be subject to the loss of federal funding.

 A 2024 report from Columbia itself admits it likely violated Jewish students’ civil rights during the year’s pro-Hamas protests,

Some [documented complaints], though not all, suggest violations of federal and state law. In such cases, Columbia should provide follow-up, investigation and rigor in dealing with inappropriate behavior toward targeted groups. The frequent failures to do so, documented here, point to the troubling use of inconsistent standards which reinforce the need for specific change.

Antisemitism is evil. Columbia has allowed it to rule its campus, and the lives of its students, for going on a year. This author’s glad to see the university face the music.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says it best,

Antisemitism — like racism — is a spiritual and moral malady that sickens societies and kills people with lethalities comparable to history’s most deadly plagues…Making America healthy means building communities of trust and mutual respect based on speech freedom and open debate.

Here’s to eradicating disease in Columbia, and to a healthier future for American universities.

Additional Articles and Resources

Antisemitism at Columbia Alive and Well

New York Drops Charges Against Pro-Hamas Protesters Who Stormed Hamilton Hall

INVESTIGATION: Who funds anti-Israel protests?

Jewish Students Urged to Flee Columbia University Following Antisemitic Protest

Antisemitism — What It Is and Its Connection to the Israel-Hamas War

Israel is Under Attack—Here’s Why Christians Should Support Its Defense

Antisemitism at Columbia Alive and Well

Columbia University continues to fail Jewish students, The Free Press reports, after effectively allowing the Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) coalition to hold a two-day celebration of terrorism.

Shoshanna Aufzien and Alon Levin filed a Title IV complaint with the school in November after scoping out the event “Hind’s House” — a series of pro-Hamas exhibitions ostensibly honoring Hind Rijab, a five-year-old Gazan girl killed in the Israel-Hamas war.

Student protesters renamed Hamilton Hall, “Hind’s Hall,” last April after breaking into the building and holding several custodians hostage. The infamous “occupation” resulted in more than 100 arrests.

Title IV of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in institutions and activities that receive federal aid. These protections extend to the creation of “hostile environments” based on these characteristics, which the Department of Education defines as:

When school staff, a student or another person engages in unwelcome conduct based on race, color or national origin that … is subjectively and objectively offensive and is so severe or pervasive that it limits or denies a person’s ability to participate in or benefit from the recipient’s education program or activity.

In their Title IV complaint, Aufzien and Levin alleged the “terrorist propaganda and antisemitic tropes [displayed at ‘Hind’s House’] in such a blatant manner [made them] feel targeted and unsafe.”

It’s no wonder. The students’ testimony, in addition to photos and videos obtained by The Free Press, show “Hind’s House” presented, in part, a wall covered in distorted and bloodstained paintings of menorahs and Jewish stars; a poetry reading “borrowing” from Yahya Sinwar, the deceased Hamas leader behind the October 7, 2023 massacre of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens; a “resistance training” session teaching attendees how to avoid detection while protesting; and a poem superimposed over an image of a hang-glider, which Hamas terrorists used to breach Israel’s borders on October 7.

“So on that day, the people of Gaza drifted into the sky like a host of colorful dragon flies,” the poem read.

The event most prominently featured a shrine, of sorts, to the take-over of Hamilton Hall. Event-runners filled a pool table with wire cutters, wrenches, hammers and other tools used to break into and vandalize the building.

Among the tools were the red headbands protester’s sported, emblazoned with the logo of another regional terrorist group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. (Ironically, Hamas sprouted in opposition to PFLP and other groups interested in establishing a secular regime in Palestine. The two don’t like each other.)

The pro-Hamas protest queen herself, Nerdeen Kiswani, thanked the Hamilton Hall vandals in a speech at “Hind’s House.”

Kiswani runs Within Our Lifetime, the pro-Hamas group behind some of the most damaging and disruptive demonstrations in New York. She was banned from Columbia’s campus in November 2023 after she called for “intifada revolution,” or armed rebellion against Israel. She defied this ban in April to participate in Columbia’s “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.”

True to form, Kiswani concluded, “As long as Israel exists, it’s a genocide against the Palestinian people…”

Click here to learn about the real genocide that took place in 2024.

Columbia has made promise after promise to address campus antisemitism. This summer, the school’s Antisemitism Taskforce released a report documenting the abuse Jewish and Israeli students suffered during pro-Hamas protests and recommending the university make changes to address the “serious and pervasive” problems the investigation uncovered.

One section of this report specifically concludes:

Some [documented complaints], though not all, suggest violations of federal and state law. In such cases, Columbia should provide follow-up, investigation and rigor in dealing with inappropriate behavior toward targeted groups. The frequent failures to do so, documented here, point to the troubling use of inconsistent standards which reinforce the need for specific change.

But outside a single Zoom call with the Columbia’s Office of Institutional Equity — which, to its credit, was reportedly engaged and concerned — Aufzien and Levin do not know the status of their Title IV complaint.

“We don’t know what happened next with the information we provided,” Levin told The Free Press.

Columbia, for its part, claims the investigation is ongoing, but tricky, because “Hind’s House” took place in an off-campus house owned and operated by an alumni group. The school reportedly pays for several of the houses’ amenities, including Wi-Fi.

“Essentially, the house exists in an ambiguous gray zone,” Levin explains, “allowing Columbia not to take accountability for the events that take place there, despite its clear affiliation with the school.”

It’s unclear whether Columbia will face any punishment for violating Title IV, but that’s beside the point. In “Hind’s House,” Columbia had a perfect opportunity to demonstrate its revitalized commitment to antisemitism. Instead, it has proven itself as feckless as ever — full of promises but ultimately unwilling to confront even the most blatant antisemitism.

I wish I could say I was surprised.

Additional Articles and Resources

New York Drops Charges Against Pro-Hamas Protesters Who Stormed Hamilton Hall

INVESTIGATION: Who funds anti-Israel protests?

Jewish Students Urged to Flee Columbia University Following Antisemitic Protest

Antisemitism — What It Is and Its Connection to the Israel-Hamas War

Israel is Under Attack—Here’s Why Christians Should Support Its Defense

Diversity Statements Booted From University of Michigan Hiring Process

The University of Michigan (U-M) will no longer require prospective employees to make commitments to further the school’s “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” (DEI) goals, or diversity statements, Provost Laurie McCauley announced Thursday. Until now, U-M’s affiliates could choose to solicit these statements from applicants, people up for promotion and professors seeking tenure.

The decision comes months after McCauley convened a faculty committee to consider the merits of diversity statements. The group initially recommended keeping such hiring methods — but later changed its mind.

The committee made its first recommendation in deference to “U-M’s commitment to DEI.” By that, it means “the massive amounts of time and money U-M spends on DEI.” The university has poured approximately $250,000,000 into DEI since 2016, according to internal metrics reviewed by investigative reporter Nicholas Confessore, more than half of which has gone toward hiring DEI personnel.

In 2021, the Heritage Foundation found U-M had six DEI officials for every 100 faculty members — the highest ratio of any of the 65 large public universities studied. U-M’s DEI hires continue to outpace its overall faculty growth.

After the school debuted its second DEI program in 2023, the number of employees in the university’s central DEI office, and employees with “diversity,” “equity” or “inclusion” in their title, increased by 70%, finance professor Mark J. Perry told The New York Times Magazine. In contrast, U-M’s faculty has only grown 10% since 2021.

U-M affiliates use diversity statements to maintain the ideological homogeneity the school has worked so hard to achieve. Its Collegiate Fellowship program, for instance, reportedly asks applicants whether they would contribute to DEI by researching “race, gender, diversity, equity and inclusion,” accomplishing a “significant academic achievement in the face of barriers,” or demonstrating “commitment to allyhood through learning about structural inequities.”

But institutional investments don’t always match the opinions of the rank and file. McCauley’s committee changed its recommendation when a survey of more than 2,000 U-M faculty members showed most disliked diversity statements.

The University of Michigan Record reports of the survey:

Most responding faculty agreed that diversity statements put pressure on faculty to express specific positions on moral political or social issues. Slightly more disagreed than agreed that diversity statements allow an institution to demonstrate a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion by cultivating DEI in the faculty.

The committee eventually recommended to remove diversity statements from the hiring process and, instead, embed DEI principles in their teaching and research standards. McCauley and the school’s Board of Regents elected to ignore the second half of this recommendation, deciding to do away with diversity statements all together.

It’s a big decision, signaling U-M’s willingness to evaluate the effectiveness of DEI on campus. By most available metrics, it’s a bad investment.

In his October exposé on DEI at U-M, Confessore noted such policies, including diversity statements, help U-M pursue racial diversity without breaking the law.

Michigan doesn’t allow public schools or employers to hire based on racial preferences and, in June 2023, the Supreme Court ruled colleges could no longer use race as a determining factor in which students get admitted. U-M subsequently discovered it could use diversity statements to legally identify candidates from marginalized groups. In a federal funding request for the Collegiate Fellows program, U-M noted that “a high percentage of fellows [with] demonstrated commitments to DEI are likely to come from traditionally marginalized groups.”

But screening students this way isn’t entirely successful. U-M has a more racially diverse faculty now than when DEI started, as well as higher rates of Asian, Hispanic and first-generation student enrollment. But enrollment among black students, which U-M has been trying to increase since the 1960s, has remained relatively steady between 4% and 5%. Michigan has a total black population of 14%.

Nor have DEI policies made the school a better place to learn. In a 2022 survey of students and faculty, most reported a less positive campus climate and a decreased “feeling of belonging” than before DEI. Confessore writes:

Students were less likely to interact with people of a different race or religion or with different politics — the exact kind of engagement DEI programs, in theory, are meant to foster.

Nor have DEI policies protected marginalized students from racism and hatred. Between February 2023 and June 2024, U-M received 67 student complaints of harassment and discrimination. “An overwhelming majority involved allegations of antisemitism,” according to Confessore.

U-M only investigated one of these complaints — an error so egregious that the Civil Rights Office at the Department of Education found the university had failed to comply with its Title VI obligations.

U-M bet the farm on DEI. Now, it must reckon with the consequences of its bad investment. Let’s pray other schools find the courage to do the same.

Additional Articles and Resources

Hurray for Walmart Abandoning DEI Programs and Policies: ‘Biggest Win Yet’

Oklahoma Bans DEI in Universities and Government Agencies

Despite Supreme Court Ruling on Affirmative Actions, race Will Continue to Influence Who Gets in College, ‘Wall Street Journal’ Reports.