Once upon a time there was a Christian University (CU) with a wonderful mission to educate men and women for leadership and service by integrating excellence in academics and living out Christian commitment within a caring community. It was a beautiful vision and one that this university faithfully sought to exhibit to the world for the sake of Jesus Christ.
One day, they received an application to one of their excellent graduate programs from a student at a Well-Regarded Christian College (WRCC). This student was, by any measure, outstanding. He had a near-perfect GPA along with glowing recommendations from his faculty replete with superlatives like “best I’ve seen in my career,” calling him a “man of deep integrity,” “deeply faithful,” and a “gift to our program.” He had done internships in his field of study, mentored incarcerated youth, and played intramural basketball, even playing on a team with the college president. He did all this while, as a non-traditional student, raising his baby son who had been born between his junior and senior year, supporting his wife’s career, and serving in his local church. Quite a remarkable young man.
When CU received his application, they immediately recognized his gifts and accepted him into a PhD program with full funding and a stipend. His dream of studying virtue and working with the renowned faculty of this Christian university seemed to be coming true.
However, this young man was unusual in another way. He had spent time in prison. When he was 15 years old, he committed a violent crime and was convicted, moved to the adult population prison when he was 17, and by every measure was on his way to a life of violence and life-long incarceration. But God had other plans for this young man. God provided mentors, older fellow inmates, who sheltered this young man, encouraged him, blessed him, and by 21, he was on a new path. From age 21 until he was released from prison in 2022, this man sought faith and peace, finished his high school education, began his college studies, and when he was released two years early (on the recommendation of a judge), he married, pursued his education, and came to WRCC on a full scholarship for ex-offenders.
CU wondered if they could accept a person who had been in prison. Although the PhD program was very excited about him, they let him know that CU would need to review his application. But how? They said they had never faced this situation before. Who would review? How should they do it? There was no process in place, they said, so they made one.
CU brought together some undergraduate faculty and mid-level administrators to review his court records. They read through transcripts and notes the prosecution prepared 25 years ago to convict this then-teenager. They asked the student to provide his own background check, but they didn’t interview him, nor did they ask him for any explanation or context. They couldn’t know that when the court records said, “The accused was removed from a foster home due to sexual assault,” that he was the victim of the assault. They couldn’t know that two years after his conviction, the foster mother lost her license due to documented abuse and neglect. They couldn’t know how he had processed the trauma and abuse of his childhood, and how he had taken responsibility for his crimes. They could only see, as they would later say, “the nature of the crimes.”
At 5 PM on a Friday afternoon, the student received the bad news. The committee recommended that his acceptance to the PhD program be rescinded. There would be no appeal process. There would be no explanation. Just a brief email with a few lines extolling his virtues, and then a few more closing the door on this opportunity forever, followed by a pithy farewell: “I hope that you don’t let this decision deter you from all the good work you can continue to do,” wrote the Associate Dean of Professional Development. “You are a special person, and God has something perfect in store for you.” Just not at Christian University.
This action raises a number of questions that any Christian university or college should be asking. The first among them: What is our purpose?
The only reason CU gave for rescinding admission was “risk.” They could not accept the “risk” of accepting a student with a violent crime in his past. How do we, in Christ, assess risk?
You would expect a university to start with data. First, a significant body of research reveals that students with criminal convictions pose no more risk than students without.1 According to Ashton Klekamp with the Educational Justice Initiative, the majority of crimes committed on university campuses are by those without a prior record. Additional research shows no correlation between crime and the number of students with criminal convictions. Simply attaching risk to prior conviction does not square with the data.
Second, you would think the process would look at the individual and his or her specific characteristics. Research from scholars at Baylor University’s Science of Virtue lab notes that accountability, for example, can be considered a unique virtue that varies by individual and has demonstrable effects on a person’s self-image and flourishing.2 While the committee had access to the academic recommendations from the WRCC where this student had studied, they did not have specific recommendations on his temperament, conduct, or other signs of “risk.” Nor did they ask for any.
But perhaps the most important question about risk is how Christians should consider what we’re willing to risk and for whom. Jesus mentions prisoners as among the “least of these” to whom his followers should extend particular hospitality. He does not specify that these are only the falsely accused or unjustly incarcerated. The prisoners of Matthew 25 surely include those who have committed the crimes for which they were sentenced. Christians, above anyone, should believe and promote an ethic of redemption and forgiveness.
None of this means putting others in harm’s way without their knowledge. Undoubtedly, the committee members at CU who decided to revoke this student’s admission were considering the current members of their university community. What if something were to happen? It is a reasonable question to ask. But it is hard not to think that one of the louder voices in the room was the lawyer. Lawyers are there to provide counsel about all the “what if?” circumstances, and the consequences of a known ex-offender harming a member of the community would certainly open up CU to risk.
It could make you wonder: who is CU truly trying to protect?
Ex-offenders face innumerable barriers to life after release.3 Universities routinely decline to admit students with past offenses due to the perceived risk. But shouldn’t CU have a different metric? Can we throw away a life when there is such powerful evidence that God is at work in a person’s life? What is the purpose of a Christian University if not to be part of God’s redeeming work?
It’s a bit surprising that CU has never had a student apply with a criminal background before. Perhaps it was this particular student’s transparency and circumstances that alerted CU to his past. It is certainly reasonable for CU to have a process for evaluating each student for suitability for the community, as they do for academic qualifications, and perhaps considering criminal history should be part of that. But having an ad hoc committee without training or expertise, without reaching out to the student in question to have a personal conversation, without taking the research into account, seems at odds with a calling any Christian school should have.
This student is resilient. He wouldn’t be where he is if he weren’t. And while God may not have something “perfect” down the road, there is no question that God will be on the road with him wherever it may lead. In the end, the tragedy is as much for CU, which lost the opportunity to have a remarkable person in their community. We can only hope they might see themselves in this tale and rethink what it means to truly integrate academic excellence and Christian commitment in a caring community.
- See Carol W. Runyan, Matthew W. Pierce, Viswanathan Shankar, Shrikant I Bangdiwala, “Can Student-Perpetrated College Crime Be Predicted Based on Precollege Misconduct?” Injury Prevention 19, no. 6 (2013): 405–11. https://doi.org/10.1136/injuryprev-2012-040644; see also, Sokoloff, N. J., & Fontaine, A. (2013). Systemic barriers to higher education: How colleges respond to applicants with criminal records in Maryland. John Jay College of Criminal Justice. ↩︎
- Robert J. Ridder, Charlotte V.O. Witvliet, Hiroki Matsuo, Juliette L. Ratchford, Karen K. Melton, Perry L. Glanzer, & Sarah A. Schnitker, “Pursuing Personal Goals: Temporal Associations of Welcoming Accountability, Personal Responsibility, and Progress Satisfaction,” Journal of Research in Personality 19 (2025): 104652. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2025.104652 ↩︎
- National Public Radio recently ran a story chronicling the challenges and even the ironies of university admissions decisions. See “For College Applicants with a Criminal Record, Checking the Box can be a Barrier.” https://www.wbez.org/wbez-news/2026/04/13/for-college-applicants-with-a-criminal-record-checking-the-box-can-be-a-barrier ↩︎
