TRP Podcast guest and Berkeley Law Professor John Yoo packs another punch. He’s a “Harvard man”, in the words of TRP guest Charles R. Kesler. Both went to Harvard as undergraduates. Charles was one of my professors (4x) for my Ph.D at Claremont Colleges.

Yoo reminds us of a case I had to read in graduate school for my Ph.D. It was a case involving the Democrat-run Bob Jones University, which had a policy against racial integration when it was run by Democrats. A Republican administration held them to account.

The rule that came out of the case, that resolved it, was that the IRS could strip the tax-exempt status from a university that went against “public policy” on race, and religious exemptions did not forbid successful application of this rule.

Harvard would not dare ask for a religious exemption based on First Amendment Free Exercise principles, even though their secular humanism most certainly qualifies as a religious point of view. Just see footnote 11 of 1961’s Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 (1961) at 495.

Both institutions historically have been run by Democrats during these racial controversies. Democrats have long had problems with racial injustice and Trump has federal power to strip their tax-funded pecuniary margin if they can’t get their act together on this.

Dr. Mather