Stockard on the Stump: Far right goes after Belmont despite conservative, Baptist roots

Belmont University. (Photo: John Partipilo)

Despite deep ties to Tennessee conservatives and Republican power players, Belmont University is finding itself targeted by the Trump administration and its allies.

Belmont has long been intertwined with the GOP. Gov. Bill Lee was once on its board, and the state’s former Republican House speaker served as an adjunct professor, while its law school dean was the former U.S. Attorney General under President George W. Bush. The medical school is named for HCA co-founder Thomas Frist Jr., brother of former Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Tennessee’s wealthiest person.   

All these ties make the recent attacks by U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Republican U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles of Culleoka more noticeable. Noem accused the university of “obstruction against federal immigration law.” 

Ogles’ former campaign treasurer and prominent conservative donor Lee Beaman is on the Belmont University Board. 

Yet Ogles called for the U.S. Department of Education to investigate the university for violating President Donald Trump’s executive order to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and called for the elimination of any federal funding for the university if found in violation  

Both accused Belmont of a litany of violations related to immigration and DEI after a conservative news outlet published an edited video of a school staffer discussing inclusivity programs and potential students who might not be legal U.S. residents.

This type of language has turned Belmont into persona non grata with Trump allies, but it also means the alleged undocumented students graduated from high school and did well enough academically to be admitted to the challenging and pricey university.

Ogles has been calling for investigations into several Nashville-related organizations since Trump’s election

He demanded an investigation of Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell for updating a longstanding policy requiring city personnel to report interactions with federal immigration agents.

Of course, Ogles didn’t send out any statements showing he raised only $53,000 this year for the next election. But that’s another matter.

In this newest threat, Ogles says Belmont is “injecting anti-gospel DEI into its curriculum,” a violation of Trump’s order.

“The preservation of faithful Christian education in Middle Tennessee is non-negotiable,” Ogles said in a recent statement.

Ogles did not return a phone call for this article.

Belmont’s changing landscape

Gov. Lee served on the Belmont board from 2011 until his first election in 2018, even though he graduated from Auburn University. Lee Company, which he placed in a blind trust, continues to hold a suite at the Curb Center where Belmont’s basketball teams play home games.

Granted, Belmont isn’t quite the same college it was 40 years ago when this writer haunted its hills and hooped for the former Rebels in old Striplin Gym, the site of numerous Battles of the Boulevard with Lipscomb.

Back then when enrollment was around 2,000, Belmont was connected to the Tennessee Baptist Conference, which provided funding and picked the college’s board members. All students were required to go to chapel two or three times a week and sit in assigned seats so attendance could be monitored. Some scofflaws got others to sit in their seats so they could skip. Seniors were to go to a seminar with a college dean, a requirement that wasn’t strictly enforced. (I skated.)

These days, with enrollment around 9,000, students can opt for other spiritual fulfillment through programs besides chapel, though it is still offered.

Belmont cut ties with the Tennessee Baptist Conference in 2007 and agreed to a $11 million settlement to set its own course with a board no longer dominated by the Baptist Church and, eventually, with members who didn’t have to be Christians.

Belmont wanted to grow, but it couldn’t stretch its legs unless it broke away from the Tennessee Baptist Conference, a part of the Southern Baptist Conference.

While attached to the past and its former life as Ward-Belmont College for Southern belles, Belmont has increasingly tied itself to Nashville’s music and arts community.

Curb Event Center, named for record industry executive Mike Curb, opened in 2003, completing the basketball program’s move to the NCAA from NAIA and a shift in athletics overall as the university dropped the Rebels moniker and its old Confederate trappings for the Bruins. The transformation wasn’t easy as the basketball teams, with no home gym or conference, had to play for several years at the Municipal Auditorium or go on the road. 

When Curb opened with an attached parking garage, offices, practice gyms and fitness areas, it seemed Belmont had built a four-star hotel on campus to replace a Motel 8. The center was a welcome relief from dumpy Striplin, and former players felt the university had graduated from the low-budget days when players were happy to have a bologna sandwich and bruised apple on road trips. 

Fast-forward to 2025, and Belmont is offering medical and law schools in addition to what is considered the premier music-business college in the country, often providing students with Music Row internships. 

Alberto Gonzales, the U.S. attorney general under President George W. Bush from 2005 to 2007, is dean of the law school, where former Tennessee House Speaker Beth Harwell taught as well. They’re not exactly bleeding-heart liberals, even if they don’t fit today’s chaotic conservatism.

Money doesn’t seem to be a problem, either, considering the multimillion-dollar, pillared academic buildings that line the campus.

The university also has a little building on Belmont Boulevard called the Fisher Center, that makes the Schermerhorn Symphony Center pale in comparison.

But if you want clear proof the university has gone to hell in a handbasket, consider its new outlook on alcohol.

Once scorned, banned and considered cause for removal, alcoholic beverages are allowed at university events. 

(You might be asking: What’s the difference between a Methodist and Baptist? A Methodist will say hello on the way out the door at the liquor store.)

No, they aren’t selling beer at ballgames, and fans aren’t getting hammered like Tennessee Vols backers at Neyland Stadium. A little wine and beer might be available at Belmont activities, if the organizers can swing it.

Belmont, though, remains an ecumenical, Christian university, and the administration under President Greg Jones is serious about recruiting all types of students. So far, the university has remained above the fray, declining to respond to questions about Ogles’ threats, none of which are likely to stop Belmont from thriving along Wedgewood Avenue on Nashville’s south side.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Lookout Senior Reporter Sam Stockard played basketball for Belmont from 1984-86 and earned a bachelor’s degree in 1986. He remains a basketball booster.)