I think the Reverend needs to be fought, and this can most effectively be done by making his policies known to the funding source and having his funding pulled.

Levon Chorbajian, Ph.D., University of Massachusetts Lowell, at 7:30 am EST on December 22, 2006

Hilarious narcissism

“Reverend: “You’re not really telling me about your faith.”

CN: “I suppose not. Look, this is about academic freedom.”

Reverend: “Not here.”

CN: “I’m the president of the American Association of University Professors. We’ve defined academic freedom for nearly a hundred years.”

Funny beyond belief! Someone does not understand what a church is, and the differences separating a church and a university, including the role of faith in each.

Make no mistake about it: Faith plays an equal role in both contexts — it’s just that academics do not grasp how faith shapes their exalted misunderstanding of themselves and of their place in the world.

Priceless portrait of academic narcissism!

JBM, at 8:45 am EST on December 22, 2006

Fighting the wrong battle

Prof. Nelson is confusing the issue by bringing the idea of academic freedom into the way this program works. By his/her description, this is first and foremost is a substance abuse program, not a university course. If the professor knew anything about step programs he/she would understand that an unquestioning belief in a higher power is central to a person’s recovery. Having participants question this higher power—or even debate it—would undermine the entire focus of the program. It has nothing to do with academic freedom and everything to do with helping people recover using a formula that has been successful for more than 50 years.

LG, at 8:46 am EST on December 22, 2006

I’ve seen this too

As a part-time community college instructor in TX as a grad student, I taught at a prison. The school director always got herself signed onto the courses as “co-instructor,” and would issue edicts concerning them. One was “no film segments.”

Fortunately, she was never there at night when college instruction took place, so I showed them anyway.

TBD, at 9:05 am EST on December 22, 2006

Well, it is stories like this that explain why David Horowitz is coming to town instead of Santa.

Tod, at 9:50 am EST on December 22, 2006

Well, Welcome to the Club...

While the academic arrogance of the author and local President of the AAUP shows through in this article, and the program defense of the Reverend is lauditory, I can relate to his experience. While not being “expelled” directly from the “classroom” (a six-sided box where “students” are captured and held to the views of the “instructor"), my experience was more of a “shunning” by the administration of Dean of a small Catholic College when I attempted to relate “The Story of Abraham, the Origin of Three Faiths” to the concepts of Stratgic Planning and a World View. I was judged “out of control” by the Dean and, after an 18 year career with the Institution, was not offered another contract.

At least this dismissal was overt!

Edward Winslow, A “tired” retired Business Professor, at 9:50 am EST on December 22, 2006

Cary Nelson on Indoctrination

Thank you for this insight into both your life and to issues of the life of the mind. Your work and words continue to intrigue and at times inspire me—tough I’m often left with differing conclusions. And, I suppose this affirms the essence of your article. In the light of what Alan Wald refers to as your “avalanche” of publications, I’m struck anew with both the quality but the quantity of your words/works. Your efforts in the rehabilitation program appear to be in line with the implications espoused in your Academic Keywords—not looking for a “cost-benefit” for yourself, but value-added to the lives of your (temporary) students. I’m simultaneously struck, however, with the ramifications of imposing the notion of academic freedom, “the glue that holds the university together” to a different institution. I realize that you’ve written tomes on the value of free exchange, and the value of speaking without “interference from the university, the state, or the public.” However, I leave your article thinking—Certainly there are times that a visitor to a mission-guided enterprise could be inappropriate in his or her choice of content. Perhaps, the educated reverend is very familiar with Hughes and has good reason, even precedent, to believe that some in the class are likely to misuse words like, “to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame” and “If white people are pleased, we are glad. If they aren’t, it doesn’t matter.” I also sit here on this eve of the holidays wishing I could have heard your intended lesson that day, and that it likely would have been a morsel to chew for many years to come. Your frustration appears to be that ten men will likely never be stirred by the likes of Hughes and Rodgers. The reflections Hughes took from his abolitionist parents in Joplin indeed provides a unique voice and smooth intensity that likely would have prodded your class to think anew on key issues. Your Sic et Non approach wins the day with me. But let me play the Wormwood for a bit. You paint the reverend with Chaucer hues, and rip through his sensibilities with your razor poignancy, noting (and perhaps correctly) “that indoctrination had to precede exposure to the free market of ideas.” As the facilitator/teacher, you believe (by implication) that “lines every American churchgoer should hear” include Baraka and Hughes. Though the reverend’s answers appear candidly insensitive to many of the beliefs we hold in common, does your/our belief that people “should hear” these lines outweigh his, let alone those of an institution that has likely studied re-entry programs and the influences on their development? You seem to slip into the fallacy of anecdotal proof (see Fisher’s Historians’ Fallacies). If this article is boiled down to expose its meat, you argue that the entire program lose its funding from the Illinois Humanities Council because a reverend—whom you were aware was from a Christ-centered organization—finds Hughes offensive. Or, perhaps he finds Hughes dangerous to that particular group due to their developmental history of which we’re unaware? As one with many voluntary hours invested in bringing funding to a similar program here in Marion, I’m also aware of the very complex issues involved with this constituency. Would I have approved your lecture? Yes. Would I be surprised if a local priest or rabbi asked that some aspects not be shared? No. You end your insightful “War Against the Faculty” with the observation that the war is on many fronts and “Resistance must take place on them all.” In the same piece you also note that tenure and academic freedom are inextricably linked. When pushing this agenda into community initiatives, there is no tenure—only the power of ideas and the dynamics of complicated relationships, and not necessarily in that order. Your impassioned, sustained and well-articulated call for academic freedom has pricked my ears for years, for which I’m thankful, including this article. My hope, however, is that the IL Humanities Council is not led to the railroad ministry, which you indirectly identify, and sever its funding. That same council likely has ample evidence that the center is providing a service that has had remarkable success, otherwise it would not have voted funding. Nearly three decades ago I had a similar “reverend” experience at a public university—at the University of Illinois, the Urbana campus, which I believe is your campus. I was invited to give a series of lectures for a winter conference and two history fellows learned that I espoused Judeo-Christian views and condescendingly refused to assist me with a logistical problem, and openly insulted my beliefs. The next morning I entered the full lecture hall and the fellows had written in large letters “Mini, mini, teckel, uparhsin! Evolution is life. Creationism is death!” After correcting the spelling, I turned to the classroom and asked them to help debrief the phrase, and what likely prompted the board’s message? Similar to the likely effect of a Hughes and Rodgers, the biting play on Babylonian history provided a wonderful teaching moment. I left that campus somewhat frustrated with the “reverends” but not UL itself. My view was anecdotal, and one that until now I’ve not shared. My view of UL was limited to the back entrance of the Natural History Building and dated hallway displays on Darwinism. By my next visit, two decades later, I was more aware of the university’s amazing graduation rates and reputable programs. Also, for the first time a host asked me to walk the quad—a scene I had not witnessed during my first visit. In a sense, I had missed the essence of the campus in the early 80s. Instead, I had a skewed view from the back door and had experienced an emotional and valuable insight into the beliefs of two insensitive “reverends.” However, I did not lose hope in the institution itself. That episode, like experiential learning tends to do, influenced my teaching to the present—calling for a true exchange of ideas and also the need for grace in a troubled and divided academy. Few of us will ever have the national platform to speak for important issues like you have—but you’ve earned it through tireless exchanges. You also appear to vote with your feet, giving of yourself and talents to causes such as the substance abuse program. Your reflections have prompted me to read anew some poets, and to become acquainted with others. Again, Thank You. JP

Jerry Pattengale, AVP Scholarship and Grants at Indiana Wesleyan University, at 9:50 am EST on December 22, 2006

Get real

Mr. Nelson — did you know the criminal histories of your “students?” Do the concepts of aggravated assault or felony murder register in your mind?

Were there prison guards in the room? Do you carry defensive weapons on your person? Have you ever had to physically-restrain a violent person? Are you physically-capable of such an act?

Those who work with these kinds of “students” — no matter what their backgrounds — are to be commended. There are also realities involved.

Example: I met Charles Colson of Watergate fame at a reception. Ex-Marine Corps — and it physically shows. (Also double-Harvard — also still shows cognitively.)

http://www.pfi.org/

Perhaps God was watching over you, Mr. Nelson. Good luck.

L.L., at 10:25 am EST on December 22, 2006

Not enough info.

While a classroom may be a classroom, etc., pedagogical purposes differ, and at a substance abuse center, the foremost pedagogical purpose is to reinforce resistance to further substance abuse.

A wide-ranging discussion of religion can indeed be part of that reinforcement, but its relationship to the process of recovery of substance abuse should be made very clear, and I don’t see that relationship made at all in the article. I think a page explaining that relationship should have been atop the sheaf of poems to be discussed—for the benefit of both the director and the persons in the program.

Atheists and agnostics do engage in substance abuse and they do recover from it, as well, probably both in similar percentages with the rest of the population. The “trick,” if you will, of making this work in a step program is that a higher power need not be a religious entity at all—a group of people who think more clearly than oneself about one’s own substance abuse can serve perfectly well as a useful higher power (some in AA claim “God” means “Group of drunks” to them; a wide assortment of non-religious higher powers has been claimed). What is most essential is that the type of egotism that asserts that one always knows what is best for oneself be surrendered to something else that can be contacted at times when one’s own interior voices start suggesting relapse or some other self-destructive behavior is “best” (in practical terms, it’s more often the phone calls to people rather than the prayerful calls to God that enable people to avoid relapse).

A rigid substance abuse program that insists upon Christian understanding of God will be perfectly good for persons who already have a fairly strong predeliction toward Christianity, but it will anger some of the others strongly enough to cause real problems with their recovery. If one only wants Christians to recover from substance abuse, while non-Christians do themselves in, I suppose that’s fine, but it does decrease the statistical potential for success of the entire membership of the program. (Intolerance of any sort is poor foundation for recovery from substance abuse.) Everyone benefits when it is made quite clear that the singular purpose of the program is recovery (not conversion)—whatever works best for each individual is what that individual should use as a concept of higher power, and what the assorted members of the group should respect is the ongoing recovery of all who are capable of sustaining recovery. The religious, athiests, and agnostics all have things to learn from one another that may enable them to continue recovery, and learning to deal with the vast differences between people is a significant part of recovery—no one gets better by insisting that as soon as the world conforms to her/his expectations, s/he will begin attempting to conform to those expectations, too.

A succinct lesson plan indicating aims somewhat along the lines of those suggested above, along with an achievable plan for recognizing those aims through the poetic discussion needs to be present; otherwise, a presentation that problematizes the matter of higher power may easily appear to fail the pedagogical aims of a substance abuse program. (On the other hand, a presentation centered wholly upon the idea that God is a useful support in times of need may easily appear to fulfill the pedagogical aims of such a program, though if that’s the _only_ type of presentation that occurs in the program, one can expect a portion of the program attendees to have some difficulty sustaining recovery due to resentment at the one-sidedness of the philosophical discussion they find themselves immersed in.)

Thane Doss, at 12:01 pm EST on December 22, 2006

clash of hubris

As a “clean” drug addict (for over 20 years) though never more than a petty societal nuisance, and an atheist, I can say that religion is hardly necessary for anyone to recover from addiction and get their life together, though many do get clean through the G/god of their understanding/choice. Still, were I to be asked about my faith, it would be easy enough to articulate, not some mumbo-jumbo about academic freedom, but in the power of literature to enlighten. Just don’t confuse having faith in something with having religion because it ain’t so.

I hope I would have fallen back on Azar Nafisi’s passage from Reading Lolita in Tehran since she says it better than I do: “It is only through literature that one can put oneself in someone else’s shoes and understand the other’s different and contradictory sides and refrain from becoming too ruthless” (118). The context of this quote, if memory serves me, is about a university professor testifying in defense of one of his former students who, himself, had become something of a criminal in the eyes of the government. Beyond “not taking the first hit of whatever” that’s plenty for the students to absorb. In fact, if all they learn is don’t take the first one, they’ll likely be fine in the long run, religion or not, literature or not.

In some respects, both Nelson and the Reverend might benefit from viewing literature in the way Nafisi does so as to stop being so ruthless about their particular dogmas. Both men are right, and both men are wrong, perhaps in equal parts, thinking their way is the only way. Like my subject line says, a clash of hubris.

bradley bleck, instructor at Spokane Falls CC, at 2:01 pm EST on December 22, 2006

Nits to pick

The Rev. Dr. Cynthia A. Gilliatt wrote:"I would hope someone who held an earned doctorate — heck — I would hope anyone who graduated from college — would know that the word ‘reverand’ is an adjective, not a noun.”

I may not be an English professor, but I can use a dictionary. Mine spells it with all ‘e’s, and has one of its usages as a noun: a clergyman.

Mike Stiber, Associate Professor at University of Washington, Bothell, at 4:35 pm EST on December 22, 2006

correction, state money

but the point remains.

Paul Gowder, at 4:50 pm EST on December 22, 2006

Understanding Academic Freedom

Not surprisingly, the commentary on “Kicked Out” neatly parallels the long conversation in the West regarding free speech. As always, the division is between those who “get” the concept of free speech and those who don’t. Those who don’t get it belong to what I call the “Yes, but. . .” crowd, i.e., “Yes, academic freedom is okay, but [insert one’s preferred utility-based exception here].” Examples: “Yes, academic freedom is okay, but not if it upsets the alumni;” or “Yes, academic freedom is okay, but not if it challenges institutional doctrine; or in the instant case, “Yes,academic freedom is okay, but not if it might interfere with the sobriety of the student.” The “Yes, but” people believe, broadly put, that free speech is okay as along as it makes people happy. If it makes anyone unhappy, then it immediately becomes a candidate for censure.

It is important in all such cases not to engage in an argument about the proposed utility or disutility of the speech in question. Rather, we need to take steps to ensure either that the setting is no longer to be regarded as academic, or that if it is academic, the question of the utility of the academic conduct is generally off-limits (within the limits of the law) to external control.

This task is especially difficult for those of us who are inclined to take empirical claims such as the Reverend’s seriously. Can reading poetry drive one to drink? I doubt it, but it is an empirical claim, and as such has no place in questions of academic freedom. Empirical data are generally irrelevant to questions of freedom. Within broad limits, freedom is a value that trumps questions of utility. If the room in which Nelson met with the other poetry readers was a classroom, academic freedom becomes the dominant value of adult discourse. If the room was actually a “therapy room” or “prayer room,” Nelson should not have been invited to teach poetry, since in those rooms, the values of therapy or prayer are the dominant values.

Best of the season!

Daryl Close

Daryl Close, at 7:15 pm EST on December 22, 2006

Much thanks for the many interesting comments above. I’ve learned a good deal from a number of them, so I expect others have as well. For the record, these weekly sessions, each taught by a different instructor, were all about literature—fiction, poetry, etc. Thus they were coordinated by an English professor and taught by literature faculty.

Cary Nelson, at 6:00 am EST on December 23, 2006

For the record

Cary Nelson is the CURRENT presdident of AAUP, a title I happily turned over to him at the end of my third term in June of this year.

As for his being a millionaire, I’m sure he’s still looking for the cache (pun intended, sorry). As for arrogance and abuse, it seems to me it is the anonymous clergyman who displayed arrogance and Cary who suffered the abuse. But, then, I’m not omniscient, as a few commentators on this discussion list seem to think they are.

With all good wishes for all the holidays,

Jane

Jane Buck, Ph.D., Immediate Past President at American Association of University Professors, at 3:35 pm EST on December 23, 2006

Correction

I really do know how to spell “president.” I’m clearly not omniscient.

Jane Buck, Ph.D., Immediate Past President at American Association of University Professors, at 4:55 pm EST on December 23, 2006

Dueling “Arrogancies”

Interestingly, but ten minutes after I put down David French’s “Expelling God from the University” (_Academic Questions_ Summer 2006) I encountered Prof Nelson’s saga of his “expulsion” and the ensuing fiddling blogoeteriat over the fire in Nelson’s Rome. Some excerpts from French can question how Nelson’s sacred “academic freedom standards” are upheld by members of our profession. Perhaps the “Reverend” has more in common with our colleagues than we would care to admit!

French writes: “It is as if the academic establishment has collectively decided a certain group of people is so reprehensible and abhorrent that they must change or be cast aside, relegated to the dustbin of history.” They “share a single, defining characteristic: they are theologically conservative Christians. . . [Many] Christian students widely report their faith being mocked by professors. . . [Today’s] universities have abandoned any pretense of religious neutrality and now set themselves firmly against orthodox Christianity. . . And it is truly ominous that the left has implemented this regime in spite of the fact that _every part of it_ is clearly prohibited by law. . . [The] basic constitutional liberties [of students meet this “seemingly irresistible and authoritarian ideology. . . , a two-pronged assault on theologically conservative Christians"!

Perhaps Mr. Nelson and those who lament with him should read French’s piece, but of course, most will discount French as being too anecdotal. But then, what is Nelson’s lament if not an anecdote?

Mr. Nelson should be commended for his community service, but an essential element of true service to a community is to understand its culture, not to colonize it with the values from another.

Lynn Fauth, Professor of English at Oxnard College, at 5:20 am EST on December 27, 2006

Read the text

How did a church-owned clapboard building housing a substance abuse program run by a clergyman turn into a prison?

Skeptic, at 9:56 am EST on January 2, 2007