Cruz: Defund colleges that don't support free speech

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said during an exclusive Campus Reform interview this week that Congress should not fund universities that discriminate against students when it comes to them exercising their rights to free speech. 

The statement came during the same interview that Cruz explained how he would investigate Yale Law School over it’s alleged discriminatory policy toward Christian students and organizations, a story on which Campus Reform reported Wednesday. 

[RELATED: (EXCLUSIVE VIDEO) Ted Cruz: Senate to investigate Yale Law]

The statement also comes just months after President Donald Trump signed an executive order that would pull federal research funding from universities that do not protect students’ rights to free speech, as Campus Reform also reported at the time. Beyond the billions in taxpayer money that public and private universities receive each year, colleges receive taxpayer money in other forms.

”I think we ought to include within the Higher Education Authorization Act a restriction on federal funds that if you are going to be silencing the free speech rights of your students that you’re not going to be getting federal funds,” Cruz told Campus Reform Editor-in-Chief Lawrence Jones during an exclusive sit-down interview in the senator’s Washington, D.C. office Tuesday. 

”Congress has used that tool before to say we’re not going to fund discrimination, we’re not going to fund conduct that is violating constitutional rights and I think that’s a lever that we should be using today,” Cruz added.  

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