Within hours, hundreds of Vought’s fellow alumni had complained that Vought’s agenda contradicted the values they had been taught at Wheaton. By Saturday morning, the college had deleted the post, and a new social media barrage, this time from Vought’s supporters, had begun. The college has defended its original post, and its subsequent pivot, as “deliberately non-partisan,” as its institutional commitments demand.

(RNS) — On Friday (Feb. 7), Wheaton College, the evangelical Christian school outside Chicago, publicly congratulated Russell Vought, a conservative activist and architect of Project 2025 who attended the school, for his confirmation by the U.S. Senate as director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Within hours, hundreds of Vought’s fellow alumni had complained that Vought’s agenda contradicted the values they had been taught at Wheaton.

By Saturday morning, the college had deleted the post, and a new social media barrage, this time from Vought’s supporters, had begun.

The college has defended its original post, and its subsequent pivot, as “deliberately non-partisan,” as its institutional commitments demand.

“Wheaton College congratulates and prays for 1998 graduate Russell Vought regarding his senatorial confirmation to serve as the White House Director of the Office of Management and Budget!” said the now-deleted social media post on Friday.

One commenter responded that Vought was not only working at cross-purposes to Christian values but to his fellow alums: “The work that he is doing negatively and directly impacts countless other Wheaton alum who are seeking to be the hands and feet of Jesus in this country and around the rest of the world,” the commenter said, per screenshots of the exchanges that were deleted along with the original post but obtained by RNS.

After deleting the post, the college backpedaled, writing, “On Friday, Wheaton College posted a congratulations and a call to prayer for an alumnus who received confirmation to a White House post.” On Saturday morning, it wrote, “The recognition and prayer is something we would typically do for any graduate who reached that level of government. However, the political situation surrounding the appointment led to a significant concern expressed online. It was not our intention to embroil the College in a political discussion or dispute.”

In an email to RNS, Wheaton College spokesperson Joseph Moore said the deletion of the initial post was “in no way an apology for having expressed congratulations or for suggesting prayers for our alumnus.”

“The social media post led to more than 1,000 hostile comments, primarily incendiary, unchristian comments about Mr. Vought, in just a few hours,” wrote Moore. “It was not our intention to embroil the College or Mr. Vought in a political discussion or dispute. Thus, we removed the post, rather than allow it to become an ongoing online distraction.”

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