Dordt wins freedom from HHS mandate

On Tuesday, June 12, a federal district court issued an order (http://www.adfmedia.org/les/DordtOrderandJudgment.pdf) that halts the enforcement of the 2011 HHS mandate against Dordt College.

Beginning in 2011, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) required employers to provide insurance coverage for services and products including abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization.

“While the case was about health care coverage, we took this journey to assert our contention about religious expression more generally, believing that if we allowed government to over-assert in this area now, any future over-assertions in other areas would be more difficult to defend without this result,” says Dr. Erik Hoekstra, president of Dordt.

Last year, HHS allowed nonprofits such as Dordt to not adhere to the mandate, but federal courts in Pennsylvania and California later blocked the new rules nationwide. Through the action taken on Tuesday by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa, Dordt as well as Cornerstone University in Michigan no longer need to comply to the mandate.

“This final resolution provides Dordt with the continued freedom we have always enjoyed—specifically, to decide on the basis of our deeply-held religious beliefs the type and scope of covered services within the health plan we offer to our employees,” says Hoekstra.

About Dordt College

As an institution of higher education committed to the Reformed Christian perspective, Dordt seeks to equip students, faculty, alumni, and the broader community to work toward Christ-centered renewal in all aspects of contemporary life. Dordt has been named to the best college lists by Wall Street Journal, U.S. News & World Report, Forbes.com, Washington Monthly, and Princeton Review. To learn more about Dordt, visit www.dordt.edu (http://www.dordt.edu/).