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Texas American Muslim Institute for Technology at Dallas was recently ordered to cease operations after state officials said it lacked proper authorization and accused it of false advertising.
While state action has focused on regulatory compliance, public discussion over the school has centered on its religious identity.
At least one Christian attorney told The College Fix that, in general, a Muslim university would be constitutionally permitted to operate in the United States if they meet applicable legal and regulatory requirements.
Michael Farris, founder and chancellor emeritus of Patrick Henry College and former CEO of Alliance Defending Freedom, said constitutional protections for religious colleges apply equally across religions.
“The ability of religious colleges to have mandatory religious courses is absolutely a component of what a religious college can and should be able to do,” Farris said.
“There would be no legal basis for saying that the Muslims couldn’t do the same thing,” he said, assuming compliance with funding, regulatory, and faculty credentialing requirements.
The cease-and-desist letter from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, issued under the direction of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, had cited Texas American Muslim Institute for Technology’s failure to comply with requirements governing higher education institutions.
On May 18, the state sued the institution, alleging it was “unlawfully presenting itself as a university, offering degrees it is not authorized to grant, and misleading prospective students about its legitimacy.”
The College Fix previously reported that the institute also advertised heavily to international students and concerns were also raised about its use of the “TexAm” moniker.
Texas’ lawsuit alleges the university solicited “students online and overseas” while promoting degree programs without approval.
Drawing on his experience founding the Virginia-based Patrick Henry College, Farris said institutions may discuss plans to open, but cannot actively recruit students or promote degree programs before receiving state approval.
You can say you are planning to start a college, but actively encouraging applications before approval clearly crosses a line, according to Farris.
“It raises a question of whether these people are serious about following the law,” Farris added.
At Patrick Henry College, students complete 62 core credits, and Farris noted that required coursework includes Old and New Testament sequences and biblical reasoning, with an expectation that courses are taught from a Christian worldview. Many Christian colleges also require chapel attendance or other required faith-based components.
An Islamic-based university could do the same, Farris said.
Indeed, Farris added that conservative Christian universities have historically been the primary targets of regulatory bias.
He pointed to Patrick Henry College’s experience of being denied accreditation due to its views on creation, while emphasizing challenges facing Christian institutions in California and New York.
These forms of bias should not be happening, he stated, adding that while conditions are currently favorable to conservatives, that can always change under a new administration.
From a personal theological perspective, Farris distinguished between what he described as “the saved and the not saved,” a category he said includes many secular universities, adding that “schools that mislead people about God are never what [he] would want.”
“I don’t care if they’re secular misleaders or Muslim misleaders or communist misleaders,” he stated, emphasizing that they all ultimately mislead people.
He said institutions such as Harvard, Yale, and Princeton influence far more people than a Muslim university would, and described anti-God perspectives as spiritually harmful regardless of source.
“Certainly, more Americans listen to that than would listen to a Muslim university, so an anti-God perspective is spiritually harmful, no matter who the anti-God teacher is, but they’re all equally protected,” he added.
“Still, under our Constitution, religions we like and religions we don’t like are all equally protected.”
Legal issues could arise, however, if Muslim institutions promote or endorse violence.
If a Muslim institution were to teach a form of Islam that directly advocated violence or the overthrow of the government, that would be a potential fault line.
Much of the current rhetoric on college campuses is also approaching that line, according to Farris, particularly when it calls for violent political change, characterizes the United States as an “illegal occupier,” or calls for violence to “get America out of America.”
Farris also discussed immigration policy and concerns about individuals who come to the United States “with the goal of hopefully staying and radicalizing our country.”
He emphasized that the U.S. has more legal discretion over whom to admit into the country, emphasizing the importance of admitting individuals who support foundational American principles, including the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
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