You've no doubt never heard of Multnomah University. It's in Northeast Portland, on Glisan between 82nd and the 205.

Heck, I grew up in a suburb of Portland and I'd never heard of it until now.

Multnomah University is a non-denominational Christian university in Portland, Oregon. Multnomah consists of a college, graduate school, seminary and Degree Completion Program, and the university offers bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees.

MU's President G. Craig Williford wrote a letter to the US Department of Education in February saying that MU "affirms the dignity of all human beings."

Then he basically asked the Department of Ed to agree with him that transgender people deserve no compassion, because evidently they are not human.

The tiny, 79-year-old nondenominational university is one of a growing number of religious schools around the country asking the federal government for an exemption from anti-discrimination laws where gender identity is concerned.

Basically, the school's arguing its religious beliefs don't allow it to accept or employ transgender people, but that should have no bearing on the federal funding it happily accepts each year.

Thing is, MU will probably receive this exemption from complying with Title IX. Faith-based schools routinely receive such by arguing that not discriminating against people would violate their religion.

Dozens of such "Christian" schools have requested such waivers. Twenty-seven received their exemption last year. Nine have applications pending.

Among those seeking waivers have been Oregon's George Fox, Michigan's Spring Arbor, California's Simpson University, and Biola in Rancho Milario.

Biola has gone so far as to include the following official language banning transgender students and employees:

In employment and in student life, we regard sex at birth as the identification of the given biological sex of each member of our constituency. We will not accept as valid alterations of one’s sex at birth based on experiential variation or medical intervention.

Biola's justification?

Jesus Christ himself affirmed this in his teaching correcting abuses of divorce stating at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female.

With a smirk I am pleased to inform you that Biola did not receive an exemption, since it is not controlled by a religious entity.

But Biola didn’t craft the discriminatory language it used for the anti-transgender portions of its handbook nor for the application for the waiver. Those were crafted by the Christian Legal Society as a “sample policy” and used by Biola verbatim.

Institutions which used the same language and received exemptions because they were affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention include Anderson University, Carson-Newman University, Charleston Southern University, East Texas Baptist University, Howard Payne University, Judson College, Louisiana College, North Greenville University, Oklahoma Baptist University, The Baptist College of Florida, Union University, University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, University of Mobile, University of the Cumberlands, William Carey University, and Williams Baptist College.

Several Catholic schools have objected to gender identity being included as protected under DoE's interpretation of Title IX. Those include Belmont Abbey, Franciscan University of Steubenville and St. Gregory's University.

Bethel College of Indiana asked for an exemption from Title IX if it “would require the College to allow males and females to reside in the same housing, to visit within the housing of the opposite sex without restrictions, to allow an unmarried male and female to live together, or to allow a person with gender identity issues to be treated as a member of the sex which they have assigned to themselves…” or “would require that the College not discriminate in discipline, admissions, hiring, and employment decisions, in matters such as employment leaves for pregnancy, childbirth, and elective termination of pregnancy, or on the basis of pre-marital sex, unmarried pregnancy, extramarital sex, or homosexual activity."

Especially in Oregon, we kind of like to think of ourselves as a progressive state on issues like this. Then you see institutions like this engaged in this kind of open discrimination and it's just really troubling.

--Mat dos Santos, ACLU of Oregon

It's wrong that Christian universities receive public support while discriminating against members of their student body.

--George Fox graduate A. J. Menoza

Title IX may allow schools like Multnomah to get federal dollars, but it doesn't protect them from local anti-discrimination laws.

At this point, no one from any of these schools has come to us. If they did, I'm very certain we would look at it very, very closely.

--dos Santos