Looking at press coverage over the last few days, I think it's pretty fair to ask,

what exactly is going on at Liberty University?

Hundreds of colleges and universities have sent students home because of the coronavirus.

But one university is bringing students back to campus during

this crisis. At Liberty University, the dorms and dining halls are open, students returning to

campus from across the country and world. Liberty University is an evangelical school in Lynchburg,

Virginia, run by Jerry Falwell Jr. And Slate's Ruth Graham, who covers religion

for us, she says that to understand what's happening at Liberty, you need to know that this college

is about more than just faith. It's kind of the college institution of Trumpism in a lot of ways,

especially kind of evangelical Trumpism.

What's the college's motto?

Well, the unofficial motto, which I mentioned in my story last week, is politically incorrect since 1971.

I've heard that there was a billboard up at some point with that on it, but I've never been able to find an image of it.

But it's on t-shirts and things like that.

So they really pride themselves on kind of bucking the conventional wisdom of mainstream academia.

And even, you know, in some ways really set themselves against mainstream evangelical

academia.

When it came to the coronavirus, at first, Liberty University had no problem bucking the conventional

wisdom. Jerry Falwell Jr., the college president, showed up on Fox News and conservative

radio, compared COVID-19 to the common flu.

I mean, the media's going nuts here because, you know, we were, the young people are not

following the orders like they thought they were, I guess they were going to follow, and stay inside, hunker down.

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