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Liberty president Jerry Falwell Jr. to lead education task force for Trump

Posted at 4:22 PM, Feb 02, 2017
and last updated 2017-02-02 16:22:46-05
Jerry Falwell Jr.

Jerry Falwell Jr.

WASHINGTON — Evangelical leader Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University, will lead an education task force put together by President Donald Trump, a spokesman for the university told CNN Thursday.

Len Stevens, the school’s spokesman, said Falwell — the son of Jerry Falwell Sr., the late televangelist — will push to stop regulations coming out of the Education Department, especially those that apply to colleges and universities.

The White House declined to comment.

Falwell has been particularly interested in curbing rules that require schools to investigate campus sexual assault under Title IX, a federal law that bans discrimination in education.

“(Falwell) has an interest in eliminating what he feels are overreaches by the federal government, particularly the Department of Education, as pertains to colleges and universities across the country,” Stevens told CNN in an email.

“Title IX is one of the areas he mentioned where there is over-regulation,” Stevens added, adding that Falwell feels issues regarding investigating campus sexual assault are “better left to police, attorneys, judges.”

In a coup for Trump, Falwell endorsed Trump in January, before the Iowa caucuses, where a bulk of the electorate is made up of evangelical Christians.

Falwell also introduced Trump before he spoke at Liberty University last year, telling the thousands of students assembled that he seems similarities between Trump and his televangelist father.