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| Jerry Falwell Jr. is the head of Liberty University, a private Christian institution. He said he's concerned with 'overregulation' in higher education. 2 Feb 2017. Getty |
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Trump taps evangelist Jerry Falwell Jr. to lead higher education task force
Daily Mail
February 1, 2017
Category: Religion
President Donald Trump has tapped Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. to lead a White House task force on improving higher education.
Falwell, one of the country's most prominent evangelical leaders, endorsed Trump in January 2016, just days before the Iowa caucuses, which were the first votes cast in the presidential election cycle.
His support led Trump to victory in the Republican primary and the general election, with 80 percent of white evangelicals choosing for president the GOP leader last November.
Now, NBC News is reporting that Falwell will play an official role in the Trump White House.
The Liberty University president will specifically look at 'overregulation and micromanagement of higher education,' according to university spookesman Len Stevens.
Later, in an interview with the Washington Post, Falwell explained: 'In the Department of Education, there's too much intrusion into the independent accreditation.'
'There's too much intrusion into the operation of universities and colleges,' he continued. 'I've got a whole list of concerns. It mainly has to do with deregulation.'
This wasn't the first education-themed role for which Falwell was being considered.
After Trump's win, the evangelical leader talked to the president-elect about becoming his secretary of education, a nomination that eventually went to Betsy DeVos.
Falwell declined, according to NBC, because he wanted to stay close to Lynchburg, Virginia, where his Christian university is based.
A lawyer and educator, Falwell is the son of the late Jerry Falwell Sr., who founded the private Liberty University.
The elder Falwell also co-founded the Moral Majority, the Christian political organization that helped another Republican president, Ronald Reagan, reach the White House in 1980.
Reagan appointed Rev. Robert Billings, the Moral Majority's first executive director, to be a religious adviser to this presidential campaign.
The Republican president later nominated Billings to serve in the Department of Education.
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