Did You Know Baylor – aka Harry Potter U – Costs $57K+ a Year to Attend?

Oh, if only I were being a clever jokester in the headline. Alas, I am not.

Baylor University, that once esteemed but still goll danged pricey bastion of Christian higher learning…

Tuition*	$54,844
Rooms and Meals	$15,126

…Baylor charges tuition at a flat rate of $57,734 per academic year for students taking 12 hours or more per semester through our Guaranteed Tuition Option.

…came to my attention this morning via an extraordinary tweet on X. 

It started out as a simple “Whut?” that I thought would turn into yet another millennial emoting gibberish. But it turned out to be something entirely different—something both alarming and par for the current course.

I kind of giggled when I read what was obviously a reply to a tweet that probably had some David Hogg-ish type faux intellectual depth and zero self-awareness.

I mean, it’s hilarious on its face.

Oliver Traldi, the author, is no slouch himself. He has a Ph.D. in philosophy from Notre Dame and is currently a research fellow in the James Madison Program at Princeton, besides all the other things he does. Guy’s got chops, and he’s also pretty unfiltered when expressing an opinion. 

Intrigued, I took a look at the original tweet (I was right about the faux intellectual depth). Then I read the bio of who wrote it, AND the juvenile “Fox News” snark in reply to Traldi…

…and couldn’t believe my eyes. 

Because it wasn’t a twenty-something with the IQ of a watermelon and the life experience of a gnat.

It’s a Baylor professor waxing poetic about the course he teaches. He’s DOCTOR Greg Garrett, who became a Baylor professor in 1989…

…Dr. Greg Garrett is a professional writer who teaches creative writing, film, literature, and theology classes at Baylor University…

…Dr. Garrett often represents Baylor as a speaker, teacher, and moderator, with appearances at Villanova University, Google UK, Washington National Cathedral, the American Library in Paris, King’s College London, the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford, Trinity Church Wall Street in Manhattan, the Edinburgh Festival of Books, and Gladstone’s Library in Wales. He regularly teaches classes for the Writers League of Texas, and moderates events year-round for the Austin Film Festival. A seminary-trained preacher in the Episcopal Church, Dr. Garrett is a distinguished homiletician who has preached at Wesley Seminary in Washington DC, St. Mark’s Cathedral in Seattle, King’s College in London, and the American Cathedral in Paris, on the nationally-broadcast radio show Day One, and as the featured preacher for the annual meeting of the international Academy of Homiletics.

…and is a “seminary-trained preacher in the Episcopal Church“?!

The  Church? Well, wait a cotton-pickin’ minute! This “preacher” who “often represents (Christian university) Baylor” just used his “Harry Potter course” to indoctrinate his students and demonize J.K. Rowling for calling men in dresses “M-E-N.”

He might be trained, but he missed the whole “Christian” lesson.

Oddly enough, I’m not the only person who noticed the obvious contradiction there. 

Some folks even went looking for the Baylor #Rulez Book, because surely there had to be some professional guidance regarding discussions of current fads and sexuality in a “Christian” university. And, indeed, there’s a section about complying with your employer’s “Christian” nature, as you might well imagine, and, oddly enough, some notes about gender, too.

What Ms. Basham found was a very clear and unequivocal statement on “human sexuality” from the school in their handbook:

Students will “not participate” in advocacy groups promoting “understandings of sexuality that are contrary to biblical teaching.”

But a Baylor professor is at liberty to advocate against and attack an author – or anyone for that matter – as part of his classroom instruction who believes EXACTLY THAT? Then to be so arrogant as to publicly preen about it afterward?

What is wrong with this picture and with that school?

SHE SCREAMS INTO THE VOID

.@Baylor, as a Christian university, you require faculty to “be aware of and comply with all University policies.”

And you require students not to “participate in advocacy groups which promote understandings of sexuality that are contrary to biblical teaching.”

Please explain… https://t.co/NFDXnZVNkU pic.twitter.com/akveuWeBrl

— Megan Basham (@megbasham) April 5, 2024

If this theologian represents Baptist Baylor University all over the world, then the systemic rot is deep in the institution. There is no way the administration is unaware of Dr. Garrett’s leanings and his advocacies. He tries to excuse them as “just loving and accepting his fellow men” in subsequent comments in this incredible thread he started, but it’s all butt-covering.

The fact of the matter is that he used his position at a Christian college to attack someone who is fighting for the Christian values that the college he works for supposedly stands for. Someone who adheres to the biblical and biological, aka Christian, definition of gender is “shameful” to Dr Garrett, and now – thanks to attending Garrett’s “Harry Potter course” – to his students.

“…Twitter Rowling? SHAME ON HER…”

It makes me wonder if Dr. Garrett was honest while using “Twitter Rowling” to defame her. Because if he was, there’s no way Rowling is shamed for her words.

However, had we a transcript of the room during this deep discussion led by Dr. Garrett, there might well be some shame to be ladled out.

The big shame is anyone who’s paying the whopping freight for an education with this guy as part of the tab.