Irreconcilable differences?

Education: Five professors say that Patrick Henry College encroached on their academic freedom, but the administration says it is preventing the slide to secularism that has characterized many once-Christian colleges | Lynn Vincent

Disclosure note: The WORLD editorial staff has affiliations among both the PHC administration and faculty. Gene Edward Veith, the author of many books that stress the importance of liberal arts education, is a senior writer (and former cultural editor). Les Sillars, a PHC journalism professor, edits the Mailbag pages.

How many 300-student colleges in their first five years of existence gain major coverage from ABC, CNN, and other networks? How many in a troubled sixth year, when five of its 16 full-time faculty members say they will not sign contracts for the seventh, gain major coverage once again?

Patrick Henry College (PHC), a six-year-old evangelical liberal arts college in Purcellville, Va., has received a full measure of celebration and derision. Founded in 2000 by Michael Farris, an attorney and ordained Baptist minister who chairs the Home School Legal Defense Association, PHC has attracted students with Ivy-League-caliber SAT scores and placed many of them in impressive Washington internships. Its moot court team has already won the national championship twice, and its debate team in 2004 bested England's storied Oxford University squad.