Liberty U president says on tape that 'getting people elected' is his goal
Liberty Universitys new president, Jerry Prevo, told a top university official this year that he wanted the large Christian school to become a more effective political player with the goal of helping to influence elections, according to a call recording shared with POLITICO.
Prevo, a 76-year-old retired pastor of a large Alaskan church, told Scott Lamb, then the universitys senior vice president for communications and public engagement, that he wanted the universitys internal think tank previously the Falkirk Center, now the Standing for Freedom Center to become more effective at political activity.
Are they getting people elected? Which is one of our main goals, Prevo told Lamb during a call that Lamb surreptitiously recorded and provided to POLITICO. Are they really motivating our conservative people to really get out to vote? If they are, we ought to be seeing some changes in elected officials and we are to some extent. All I want to do is to make us more effective.
The comments by Prevo, a Liberty trustee who took over as president following the resignation last year of Jerry Falwell Jr., raise new questions about the blurred line between education and politics at the university, which as a 501(c)(3) charity is not supposed to participate directly in political campaigns.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/27/liberty-university-jerry-prevo-influence-517303