Interracial Dating Decision Stuns Campus

GREENVILLE, S.C. —  Bob Jones University’s decision to lift its half-century-old ban on interracial dating has stunned students and the fundamentalist Christian school’s supporters who learned about it Friday night in a nationally televised interview with President Bob Jones III.

“I don’t think even his own secretary knew what he was going to do,” school spokesman Jonathan Pait said.

Thousands of students and supporters gathered at the university’s auditorium to watch Jones’ interview on CNN’s “Larry King Live.” People were in shock, senior Naion Lundy said.

“We didn’t expect it at all,” he said.

Lundy, also a sergeant with the university’s public safety department, said Saturday that reporters were not permitted to interview students and faculty on campus.

Jones said the extraordinary national scrutiny the school has received since GOP presidential candidate Texas Gov. George W. Bush made a campaign appearance led to the move.

“This thing has gotten so out of hand,” Jones said. “All of a sudden the university is at the center of a Republican presidential debate.”

Bush appeared at the school last month and later apologized for failing to criticize the school’s anti-Catholic views and racial policies.

The Greenville school banned interracial dating in the 1950s, when an Asian family threatened to sue after their son, a student, almost married a white girl, a school spokesman has said.

The first black student was not admitted until the 1970s and the school lost its tax exemption in 1983 after a 13-year battle with the Internal Revenue Service, which found the school’s policies discriminatory.

The school had defended the dating ban based on a biblical interpretation that God created people differently for a reason.

Jeff Dayton graduated from Bob Jones last year and now works at a Bible gift shop across the street. He and his wife, who still attends, were surprised and happy about the decision.

“I can tell you they are not Jew-hating, they are not Catholic-hating and they are not racist,” Dayton said. “This was just an old rule that needed to be changed.”

The university is a popular stop for Republican candidates seeking conservative support. Bush appeared at the school shortly after he lost to Arizona Sen. John McCain in the New Hampshire primary.

After losing South Carolina, McCain’s campaign made “Catholic Voter Alert” calls in the next states, Michigan and Washington, to tell them of Bush’s visit to Bob Jones.

Those remarks have hurt McCain more than Bob Jones, said Jerry Brockman, who owns a clothing store nearby.

South Carolina House Speaker Pro Tem Terry Haskins, a Republican and Bob Jones graduate, resigned as co-chairman of McCain’s state campaign after the Arizona senator’s criticism increased.

The school of 3,500 students has stuck to its fundamentalist guns and often doled out as much criticism as it received.

Jones, president since 1971, and his father, who died in 1997, have been sharp-tongued about those they believe have abandoned the strict teachings of the Bible, including Billy Graham and the pope.

Graham should not have reached out across denominations for his crusades, Jones III says. Instead of meeting Pope John Paul II when he visited the state in 1987, Jones Jr. said he would rather “speak to the devil himself.”

But the Jones family almost reflects the changes facing the school.

Bob Jones IV is the first in four generations to break ranks for a career outside the university. Jones, 33, a writer for the Christian magazine World, said his own academic career belies the charge his father is anti-Catholic. He earned a master’s degree in history at Notre Dame with his father’s support, he said.