ACTA's Must-Reads
« ACTA a trendsetter | Main | Help wanted »
William and Mary Update
Yesterday William & Mary's board met, and one item on the agenda was to consider the debacle that has arisen over President Nichol's unilateral decision last fall to remove the cross from the college's historic Wren Chapel. Nichol had yielded to the prerogatives of political correctness while ignoring the ideals of democratic process--without consulting anyone or opening a campuswise discussion on the matter, he determined that the cross had to be removed because keeping it in place could offend members of the campus community.
The board's discussion of the matter yesterday was inconclusive. In a public statement, the board acknowledged that Nichol had made mistakes when he acted on his own to remove the cross (this is something ACTA urged the board to recognize in a recent letter). But he also acted out of devotion to the university, the statement noted, praising his commitment to "inclusion and diversity." As for what to do about the cross itself--no conclusions were reached, and the board will not revisit the issue until the legal aspects of the issue are assessed and a committee appointed by Nichol to look into the role of religion at public universities has issued its report.
What the board was clear about: "William and Mary is and should be a diverse and welcoming place to all students from around the Commonwealth and around the globe. This should be the message that is projected to prospective students and the outside world. One might argue about where the balance should be struck to achieve this imperative, but we are convinced that adding fuel to the current flames of controversy will only singe the reputation of our College."
In other words, while acknowledging that rancorous dispute about the cross isn't doing much to improve the campus climate, the board is tacitly acknowledging the questionable claims of those who have argued that the presence of the cross made them feel unwelcome at the school. Those claims stem from a presumption that one should not have to tolerate expression one does not agree with, and from a related presumption that such expression--however innocuous in itself--is inherently offensive. That's not the message the board should be sending if it is seriously committed to sustaining and nurturing a diverse and inclusive campus culture.
Posted by acta online at February 9, 2007 08:04 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.goactablog.org/blog/mt-tb.cgi/289
Comments
"Those claims stem from a presumption that one should not have to tolerate expression one does not agree with, and from a related presumption that such expression--however innocuous in itself--is inherently offensive."
That's simply incorrect. The presence of the cross is not "expression" by some individual or group attending the university. It is an expression of ideology by the university as a whole to its constituents. A university cannot at once uphold The Cross and the ideal of deliberative liberalism (or free speech). The former squashes the latter by asserting one mode of thought as above all others.
And what mode of thought does The Cross express? That Jesus Christ was born to a virgin mother, that He died on the cross for our sins, that Jesus Christ is the son of God, that Christianity is the one true way.
So when a university expresses that Christianity is the one true way, it cannot also claim to be a "free market of ideas." The Cross would signify that, at the level of institution, many fundamental ideas are no longer open to debate.
Thus, we don't hear about William and Mary students or professors trying to have Christianity expunged from the university as a whole. Instead, we have certain members of the community questioning whether it is right for the university to sanction one ideology over others.
Similarly, no one is demanding that William and Mary's Hillel remove Jewish religious symbolism from its website (http://www.wm.edu/so/balfour-hillel/). Such expressions are clearly the free speech of individuals and groups within the university and not of the university as a whole.
Clearly, ACTA is more interested in defending Christians than in maintaining colleges and universities as spaces for the free exchange of ideas. If a professor put up an Palestinian flag in his Intro to Biology lecture hall, ACTA would be all over him for indoctrinating his students. But if a college erects The One True Cross above its students, ACTA defends the Cross, not the students being indoctrinated by the college.
Posted by: Alvin Lucier at February 9, 2007 12:49 PM