Six months after the US Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, Dr. Randall O’Brien, president of Carson-Newman University in Jefferson City, Tennessee, told the local CBS affiliate that “in a changing world, we want to reaffirm who we are, who we intend to be, and establish our identity as a religious school, a Christian school.”

O’Brien was gleefully explaining that the 165-year-old college, established as Mossy Creek Missionary Baptist Seminary in 1851, had just been granted a US Department of Education (DOE) exemption from Title IX regulations, in effect allowing the university to continue to collect federal dollars for scholarships and sports programs despite banning unmarried, pregnant students; women who have had abortions; single mothers; and LGBTQ people from attending classes or working on campus.

This was not Carson-Newman’s first foray into regulating the behavior of students, faculty or staff, or in imposing a set of religious restrictions on those connected to it. Far from it. Prior to obtaining the Title IX exemption last December, the campus code of conduct […]