ABSTRACT
Tufts University lies north of Boston, one of the several colleges and universities that give the Boston area its reputation as a center of higher learning. Tufts's Leonard Carmichael Society (LCS), named for a past president of Tufts, involves a large number of students in activities such as fundraising for charitable causes, mentoring teenagers, and teaching reading to pupils at the local public schools. The first observation is that well before Tufts University disengaged itself from the Universalist version of the Protestant religion, Universalism had itself become hollowed out from within. The second observation is that the conflict that took place between the Tufts Christian Fellowship and the university's antidiscrimination policies is representative of a much wider conflict, as the same issues now confront the nation at large. The third observation is that the phenomena of an institution of higher learning founded upon religious principles becoming secular over time is a general one and not isolated to Tufts.
