By Elizabeth Troutman |

The largest Christian university in the U.S., Grand Canyon University (GCU), defended itself against “disturbing and defamatory” public comments made by the U.S. Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona.

“Mr. Cardona’s inflammatory comments, which are legally and factually incorrect, are so reckless that GCU has no choice but to demand an immediate retraction,” the statement says. “He is either confused, misinformed or does not understand the actions taken by his own agency.”

At the House Appropriations Committee hearing last week, Cardona said “we are cracking down not only to shut them down, but to send a message to not prey on students.”

The Goldwater Institute filed a lawsuit on behalf of GCU in February due to the Biden administration imposing a $37 million fine on the school. The conservative think tank claims the administration has refused to provide documents that explain why it fined GCU.

“GCU has been asked repeatedly why it believes it is being targeted by federal agencies of the Biden Administration,” the school’s statement reads. “Here’s what we can tell you: Mr. Cardona’s inflammatory comments make very clear the Department of Education’s intentions and their disdain for institutions that do not fit their ideological agenda. What’s also clear is that ED has no lawful grounds to carry out those intentions based on their disingenuous and factually unsupportable allegations.”

The Education Department’s conduct extends normal regulatory activity, the statement says.

“It epitomizes the weaponization of federal agencies’ power against a private Christian university,” according to the statement. 

GCU is confident an impartial court of law would exonerate it from the allegations. 

“GCU’s intent is to fight these accusations all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary,” the statement says. “The Department of Education’s intent, based on the frivolous nature of its accusations and defamatory statements from ED officials, seems to be to damage the university’s reputation, use its ‘findings’ as a rationale to seek loan forgiveness for students under the borrower’s defense to repayment program and impose unprecedented fines and legal fees. In other words, regardless of the inevitable legal outcomes in GCU’s favor, the process becomes the punishment.”

GCU has more than 118,000 students. The Phoenix university says it will continue to thrive. 

“With 118,000 students and growing, GCU is thriving and will continue to thrive. In an industry that is struggling and slow to change, GCU has created a model that has allowed it to freeze tuition on its ground campus for 16 straight years, increase diversity and social mobility by ensuring that higher education is affordable to all socioeconomic classes (over 40% of GCU’s ground campus student body are students of color), maintain lower student loan default rates than the national average and lower student debt levels than other private universities, and produce nearly 30,000 graduates in each of the past three years.”

The statement continued, “If a government-run institution produced those kinds of outcomes, it would be applauded. At the largest private Christian university in the country, it draws unwarranted threats from the Secretary of Education and the ire of the federal government.”

Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.