Reagan Restores Bob Jones Tax Exemption

On January 8, 1982, the Reagan administration announced that it was reversing IRS policy and would restore tax-exempt status to Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina, and Goldsboro Christian Schools in Goldsboro, North Carolina. Both institutions maintained explicitly racially discriminatory policies: Bob Jones University prohibited interracial dating, and Goldsboro Christian Schools excluded Black students entirely. The decision was made by the Treasury Department, with direct White House involvement, and was framed as a matter of protecting religious liberty and limiting regulatory overreach. It was also a direct payoff to Religious Right constituencies who had long argued that the IRS's enforcement of non-discrimination requirements violated the First Amendment rights of religious institutions. The political fallout was immediate and severe. Civil rights organizations, congressional Democrats, and much of the national press condemned the decision as an endorsement of racial segregation by the White House. Within days, Reagan was forced to publicly disavow the policy rationale while scrambling to limit the damage. On January 12, Reagan held a press conference claiming he had not known about the decision in advance — a claim that was subsequently contradicted by internal White House documents. The administration then attempted an unusual maneuver: it reversed its own reversal by withdrawing the tax exemptions it had just announced, but simultaneously asked Congress to pass legislation granting the exemptions — an effort to share political responsibility that Congress refused. The Supreme Court subsequently heard the Bob Jones University case and ruled 8-1 in May 1983 that the IRS had been correct all along. The episode is historically significant for what it revealed about the Reagan coalition. The Religious Right had been built in part on racial grievances — specifically, the resentment of white evangelicals at IRS enforcement against segregated schools — but the movement's founders had carefully avoided stating this openly, substituting abortion and school prayer as public-facing issues. The 1982 reversal attempt briefly made the racial substrate visible, and the resulting public outrage demonstrated why the substitution had been necessary in the first place.

Themes this entry appears in

• Christian Nationalism
• Anti-Democratic
• Political Strategy
• Race & Civil Rights

Connections from Reagan Restores Bob Jones Tax Exemption

• influenced → Bob Jones v. United States (1983) — The Reagan administration's January 1982 announcement that it would restore tax-exempt status to Bob Jones University and Goldsboro Christian Schools fundamentally altered the political and procedural context of the pending Supreme Court case. The administration notified the Court that it was withdrawing its defense of the IRS's position, requiring the Court to appoint an independent attorney — William T. Coleman Jr. — to argue in support of the IRS policy that the administration had just abandoned. The maneuver created an unusual situation in which the executive branch was nominally a party to a case it had decided not to defend. The resulting public controversy and Reagan's subsequent forced reversal heightened the case's national profile and made its outcome a referendum on whether the federal government would stand behind its non-discrimination policy. The 8-1 ruling in May 1983 provided the definitive answer.

Connections to Reagan Restores Bob Jones Tax Exemption

• Reagan Election (1980) influenced (1982) — After Reagan's 1980 election, which evangelical voters helped deliver, his administration moved to reverse the Bob Jones University tax exemption revocation. In January 1982, the Reagan administration announced it would restore the tax exemption of Bob Jones University and Goldsboro Christian Schools, overriding the IRS policy. Balmer reads the move as repayment to Religious Right leaders who had organized against the IRS rules, and as an early demonstration of what the evangelical-Republican alliance could deliver.

Sources

• Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right — Randall Balmer (2021), pp. 85-105
• The Real Origins of the Religious Right — Randall Balmer (2014), pp. Politico Magazine, May 27, 2014
• White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America — Anthea Butler (2021), pp. 90-100