The nation’s largest Christian college secured yet another victory against holdover ‘lawfare’ begun under the Biden administration after a unanimous vote to drop a years’-long lawsuit was delivered. Phoenix-based Grand Canyon University (GCU) announced a huge legal victory against the Federal Trade Commission, which coincides with the second major defeat of Biden-era targeting of the year since Donald Trump took office in January of 2025.
“The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted unanimously today to dismiss its lawsuit against Grand Canyon University’s largest service provider — Grand Canyon Education — and Brian Mueller, ending years of coordinated lawfare by government officials under the Biden Administration against the largest Christian university in the country,” GCU News reported on August 15th, 2025.
“The lawsuit,” it continued, “which already had been dismissed by the United States District Court of Arizona against Grand Canyon University on jurisdictional grounds, has now been completely dropped after all parties filed a joint Stipulation of Dismissal with Prejudice with the court.”
The term ‘dismiss with prejudice’ is a legal concept which means the case is now permanently closed and the plaintiff, in this case the U.S. government, cannot re-file the same claim in any court.
This particular case gained traction in 2023 when the FTC under Joe Biden filed a suit in federal court against a host of parties: GCU, Grand Canyon Education, Inc., and its president and CEO Brian Mueller. The suit claimed that each of the defendants had violated two separate laws, ‘deceptively’ advertising to prospective students and engaging in illegal telemarketing practices.
As Fox News reported, the “Biden FTC previously complained that the Arizona-based school misled prospective doctoral students about the amount of time it would take to finish its accelerated program, deceptively marketed the school as a nonprofit, and illegally called prospective students who submitted their contact information on the school’s website but requested not to be contacted.”
Donald Trump’s new FTC chairman, Andrew N. Ferguson, explained in a brief statement that the board’s unanimous rescinding was all but inevitable. Incredibly, this wasn’t even all of the ‘lawfare’ waged against GCU; in addition to the Biden FTC targeting the Christian organization, so too did Biden’s Department of Education
In that case, the Department of Education under Biden and helmed by then-Secretary Miguel Cardona denied GCU its long-standing non-profit recognition. This, despite the fact that the Arizona Board for Private Postsecondary Education, IRS, State of Arizona, and the Higher Learning Commission all said otherwise.
“This case, which we inherited from the previous administration, was filed nearly two years ago and has suffered losses in two motions to dismiss,” FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said. “These losses are compounded by recent events: Grand Canyon secured a victory over the Department of Education in a related matter before the Ninth Circuit; the Department of Education rescinded a massive fine levied on related grounds; and the Internal Revenue Service confirmed that Grand Canyon University is properly claiming 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation designation.”
In its reduced form, this case presents consumers very little upside relative to the cost of pursuing it to completion, especially given the developments chronicled above. We view it as imprudent to continue expending Commission resources on a lost cause. Because we have a duty to maximize consumers’ return on their tax-dollars investment, we have decided against pursuing this matter any further,” Ferguson’s statement concluded.
The Department of Education under the Biden administration denied GCU’s nonprofit recognition after it was approved by the Arizona Board for Private Postsecondary Education, the Internal Revenue Service, the State of Arizona, and the Higher Learning Commission.