For now over 75 years, The Baylor Line has been publishing vivid storytelling from across the Baylor Family. I don’t think our archives full of deep, inspirational features should live solely on shelves, so we are bringing them back to life in BL Classics. This April 1974 Classic examines the delicate balance Baylor University struck in the 1970s between its Baptist identity and its growing entanglement with government funding, from student aid grants to federal labor regulations. The piece traces how New Deal-era programs evolved into modern student loans and grants, and explores the constitutional tensions around religious discrimination in hiring at a denominational school.
The story has been told often enough to be gaining the stature of a legend —
A well-meaning Baylor supporter was counseling President Abner McCall about the dangers inherent in accepting any form of federal aid for the university:
“Just don’t let the camel get his nose in the tent.”
“Nose,” McCall roared, “Why the whole camel in the tent — nose, hump, four feet and tail — and he’s kicking us around!”
The shattering realism of the president’s words can be observed in many ways:
* A freshman applying for a Texas Tuition Equalization Grant (TEG) at Baylor found among the requirements that a student must “not be a religion major or take a religion course during the same semester in which he is awarded a TEG.”
* Tastefully framed, a reproduction of an institutional ad about Baylor hangs on the wall in the office of executive vice president and provost Dr. Herbert H. Reynolds. The headline, easily visible across the room, reads, “Baylor and Baptists.”
* A well-worn folder in the Financial Affairs Office on the fourth floor of Pat Neff Hall
contains a five-page typewritten list of abbreviations of government agencies and programs. “We deal with so many of them, it’s impossible to remember them all,” comments Donna Denton, financial vice president for the univeristy.
* President Abner V. McCall comments that the proposed increase in minimum wage from $1.60 to $2.20 an hour will cost Baylor University half a million dollars a year if student wages are included in the bill.
These apparently diverse observations represent but a few of the complications involved
in interpreting the role of Baylor University as a Baptist institution in a time when government controls are multiplying and reaching, tentacle-like, into even the administrative halls of private colleges and universities.
Add to such pressures the hearkening cry of those who champion a simplistic “separation of church and state” doctrine and an even clearer picture begins to emerge of the rapids which the administration must navigate to keep the university alive and well and strongly linked with the denomination.
The truth is that separation of Baylor University from involvement with the government — both state and national — is as unattainable as a naive decision to quit paying one’s income tax. A more realistic approach is, in Dr. Reynolds’ words, “to use discriminating judgement in what Baylor does take” from governmental sources.
From the University’s basic unavoidable obligations concerning Social Security, prepaid income tax withholding, unemployment compensation, wage and hour law compliance, workmen’s compensation and the much groaned about Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) have come new waves of entanglements related to equal rights and equal employment opportunities for minority racial groups and women. Baylor’s employment practices now must bear the scrutiny of both the Department of Labor and the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (DHEW).
The Financial Affairs Office has been required, among other things, to:
*Draw up an “affirmative action plan” which provides timetables and goals for achieving a “more equitable balance” between racial groups and the sexes among faculty and employees.
*Design a data processing program coding all non-academic jobs at Baylor according to salary range and responsibilities in order to analyze representation by sex and ethnic groups.
*File reports on all job interviews with prospective employees, telling why each individual was or was not hired.
*Report monthly to the Department of Labor statistics on the overall employment situation at the university.
*List all non-academic job openings with the Texas Employment Commission in order to notify veterans, who must be given priority in hiring.
Dr. Reynolds comments, “Because of the slowness of society at large to deal with inequities, the federal government has taken it upon itself to correct them.”
Strictly speaking, all of these entanglements are not unavoidable. Some are. Baylor comes under the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board because the university’s annual budget exceeds $1 million. (This year the operating budget of the university will exceed $20 million.) Civil rights enforcement affects everybody and all institutions.
But Baylor’s responsibilities under the Department of Health, Education and Welfare are involved as matters of “contract compliance” resulting from acceptance of government contracts of more than $10,000. (The mere existence of the AFROTC program on campus would more than meet this measure of involvement.)
Since 1960 Baylor has, because of action by the Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT), been denied the long-term, low interest, self-amortizing government loans which built Allen, Dawson, Collins, and Martin dormitories in the 1950’s.
But the university does enter into contractual agreements with the federal government both for student aid and faculty research grants. Baylor accepts such funding on a quid pro quo basis, rendering a definite product or report to the government in return for the dollars received. “We do not accept funding for facilities or equipment that cannot be removed easily, this in order to prevent ‘occupancy’ by the government.” Dr. Reynolds said. “In the case of student aid, the product rendered is the student himself, who goes back into society hopefully better for his education.” One feels that caution is the watchword and every decision is weighed to preclude any ongoing obligation to the federal government.
For Baylor’s academic year, 1972-73, federal funding of research and student aid totalled slightly more than $1.8 million. Over $1.6 million of that amount went to the various student aid programs.
Individual student aid goes directly from the government to the students and is kept separate from the general operating funds of the university in what is considered a necessary accounting strategy. The BGCT has four times said that in the minds of the majority of delegates acceptance of government aid to students does not violate the concept of separation of church and state.
President McCall, who has far more than an academic acquaintance with the incendiary effects of a discussion of government funding for Baptist institutions, points to more than forty years of federal government involvement in the act of financing a part of the costs of higher education for the individual student. “You have to go clear back to the New Deal programs — the Federal Employment Relief Act and the National Youth Administration — to find the roots of today’s student financial aid programs,” he said. “It began with Roosevelt’s idea of getting young people into college — primarily in order to get them out of the job market. After that came the military training programs, ROTC, and the G.I. bill.”
McCall continued, “Now we have government assistance to the student on three levels — loans, such as the National Direct Student Loan program, outright gifts like the Basic Educational Opportunity Grants, and partial funding of campus jobs through the work-study program.”
Direct aid to individual students is also available now through state funding, notably the controversial Texas Tuition Equalization Grant (TEG) program. (Loans were first made available to students under the Hinson-Hazlewood Act.)
The TEG grants were initiated in 1971 to provide money to equalize the tuition difference between private institutions and state schools. McCall was a leader in obtaining the grants. He represented not only Baylor but also the Independent Colleges and Universities of Texas, an administrators’ group of which he was then president. This year TEG grants totalling more than $600,000 were given to 1100 Baylor students. Baylor students could receive as much as $800,000 next year.
However, this direct financial benefit to Baylor students has not come without accompanying concerns. The Texas Attorney General’s office has reviewed and re-reviewed the TEG program in regard to the constitutionality of state funds benefitting students enrolled in church-related institutions. The state constitution is in some ways more restrictive than the federal constitution at this point. A recent opinion from the Texas Attorney General’s office said in part, “Denominational schools are not necessarily sectarian…and some schools with sectarian programs may be able to effectively separate their secular programs from the sectarian remainder so that the use of funds for the one does not have the effect of subsidizing or furthering the other. The dividing lines are delicate but must be sharply drawn so that public funds are not put to sectarian uses.” Baylor has thus far interpreted this that TEG money should not be paying tuition for religion courses at the university, which, traditionally, are taught from a base affirming the truth of the Christian faith.
The opinion also included a paragraph which introduces another matter of concern:
In our opinion, discrimination among staff members on the basis of religious affiliation or religious views, in policy or in practice, is very strong evidence that the institution is sectarian and that funds channeled through it would be used to promote or inhibit religion. The question then is: Does Baylor, while receiving government funds for students, have the right to discriminate on the basis of religion in the hiring of its faculty? (The matter would not seem to be a problem in the hiring of non-academic personnel not directly involved in the teaching process.)
An interesting parallel to Baylor’s situation exists at Brigham Young University, which has been allowed by DHEW to give preference to Mormons for faculty and administrative positions on the basis that “religion is a bona fide occupational qualification for a position, and such qualification is necessary to the normal operation of the university.” Listed first among the reasons which DHEW gave for its decision was that the purpose of Brigham Young was to “provide education in a religious setting which permeates the entire life of the school.”
Dr. Reynolds, who, in his position as provost, is the chief academic officer of Baylor, interprets the existing policy of the Baptist General Convention of Texas as “encouraging Baylor to attempt to attract well qualified Baptists to its faculty and staff.” “If we cannot find a Baptist, then we look next for a well qualified Protestant,” he added.
It would seem that for the time, with constitutional interpretation being what it is, Baylor can continue to receive state and federal money while being assured of the right to choose faculty and administrative personnel on the basis of religious commitment. At present about two-thirds of both the faculty and student body of the university are Baptist. And the attitude that exists in the administration is that the university’s Baptist affiliation and identity are the basis of the continued strength of the university.
McCall feels that at the present Baptists are among the religious denominations which are maintaining the strongest ties with their colleges and universities. The BGCT, he points out, exercises three important controls over Baylor: the Convention elects all of the Baylor trustees, it contributes substantially (over $1 million annually) to the support of the university, and the charter cannot be changed without BGCT approval.
“Baylor was Baptist even before there was a Baptist General Convention of Texas — in fact, they joined us,” Reynolds said. “If we ever lose our Baptist distinctives, we lose our identity. And we also realize that if we ever lose our distinctive identity — which is the heart of our interregional appeal — Baylor will become simply a municipal college.”
McCall and Reynolds express an apparently well-discussed and well-agreed-upon view when they call for a continued firm attachment to the Baptist denomination coupled with a cautious acceptance of government funds for individual students and faculty research.
