Skye Perryman, CEO of Democracy Forward and a 2003 graduate of Baylor University, urged students and community members not to capitulate to fear on Tuesday at the Whitten Endowed Lecture sponsored by Baylor’s Department of Religion.
Perryman’s lecture, titled “A Quest for our Better Angels at 250 years: A Journey of People, Promise, and Possibility,” drew on themes related to the United States’ historical struggle to guarantee equal rights and equal protection under the law. She connected this history to recent Baylor developments, including the rejection of a grant to research the experiences of LGBTQ+ individuals in the church and Baylor’s sanctioning of a student event featuring speakers from Turning Point USA (TPUSA).
Before turning directly to Baylor, Perryman traced the nation’s recurring struggle between moral clarity and political expediency. She argued that American institutions have often chosen what she described as “performative peace”—temporary compromises that delay justice. She pointed to both the complicity and courage of faith communities, suggesting the present moment represents another turning point in the ongoing effort to expand democracy and equal protection under the law.
Democracy Forward is a Washington-based legal organization that challenges federal actions it finds unlawful and undemocratic. At its helm, Perryman has led the organization to numerous successful rulings against the Trump Administration, including in areas protecting the rights of immigrants and federal workers. She has also advocated for the rights of universities to enact programs designed to protect the civil rights of students, faculty, and staff—a theme she returned to at the conclusion of her lecture when she questioned Baylor’s decision to allow the TPUSA event.
Perryman said that in 2023, Turning Point USA leadership called Martin Luther King Jr. a “very bad person.” She added that it has overseen a professor watchlist that has created a chill across campuses nationwide.
The Baylor event will feature Tom Homan, who, according to Perryman, “has overseen policies that enable ICE raids into houses of worship and that separate children from their parents.” These are policies that restrict the United States’ role as a haven for persecuted people from around the world, she said. Perryman added that the United States leaned into this role after World War II, and that “Christians have committed for millennia to be a safe haven for those who are persecuted across the globe.”
Donald Trump Jr. is also slated to speak at the Baylor event. The President’s son, according to Perryman, “has said that women should accept sexual harassment in the workplace or stop working.”
Baylor officials have said they are working with the campus TPUSA group to ensure the event complies with university policies and procedures.
Turning to Baylor’s decision to host the event, Perryman speculated on two possible motivations. The first focused on a “marketplace of ideas” rationale.
“Unfortunately, here at Baylor, we know that cannot be the explanation,” she said. “This university does not provide that privilege to all people. LGBTQ students and their allies here continue to live under a policy that restricts them from forming groups.” Additionally, “Last year, the administration returned a research grant to squelch and censor ongoing research about the experiences of LGBTQ people and women in the church.”
In 2022, the university allowed an LGBTQ+ student group to form, but only on the condition that it refrain from any advocacy and align itself with Baylor’s Statement on Human Sexuality.
“Privileging the voices of some over the voices of others is wrong,” she said. “It belies any claim that might be made that the university is hosting (TPUSA) here because it ‘seeks to be a place where all can be heard.’”
For Perryman, this leaves only one possible reason for Baylor to host TPUSA: fear.
This includes “fear of the right-wing backlash, if it builds a true marketplace of ideas here on campus where all people are involved to express their views; fear of right-wing backlash, if a university dare treat our LGBTQ community members and their advocates as equal to other voices; fear of reinforcing its commitment to civil rights; fear of reinforcing its commitment to free dialogue, to true academic freedom; fear of its donors; fear of its trustees; fear of the right-wing press.”
She added, “Sadly, the university doesn’t appear to be afraid of failing to address the moral issues of the day, failing to be a light in the world, one where we can say we are different.”
Perryman doesn’t believe all is lost, though, and she appealed to Baylor’s Christian faith and mission as a source for hope. She spoke to all the calls from the angels in the Bible to “Fear not,” and how those calls always signaled difficult times ahead.
“Giving into fear minimizes our faith,” she said. “And it is time as a university community to live out the words, ‘Fear not.’ This is not the time for the church or for the university to get into the siren song of a performative peace. And it’s also not too late, by the way, to get on the right side of history.”
The Robert D. and Barbara H. Whitten Endowed Lecture Series was established to present lectures focused on expressions of Christian faith that intersect with the public square. Dr. Robert Whitten graduated from Baylor in 1955 and was a longtime pastor and behavioral therapist. Barbara Whitten was a 1956 Baylor graduate and is a retired school social worker.
Previous Whitten lecture speakers have included Awet Andemicael, Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, Dr. Bill Leonard, and Dr. Kenyatta Gilbert.
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