The Elephant in the Room

As I have reflected further on Jeannine Brown’s thoughtful posting on “Hidden Constraints to Academic Freedom” and the comment that I posted on that piece, I have concluded that there is “an elephant in the room” that we need to acknowledge and start talking about.

Jeannine’s concern, and mine, is the existence at some Christian institutions of higher education of “informal but real constraints [on faculty scholarship and campus conversations] beyond those clearly delineated [in the institution’s statement of Christian beliefs that all faculty and administration have agreed upon].” Jeannine and I provide a few examples on our postings.

The elephant in the room is our failure to address the “why” question. Why do some Christian schools impose “informal but real constraints beyond those clearly delineated?”

I will welcome receiving any answers to this “why” question that reflect the experiences of any contributors to or readers of this web site. I will limit myself to sharing one answer that I have heard too many times in my forty years of service at four Christian liberal arts colleges: “Even if disagreement about this particular controversial issue is not precluded by our school’s statement or beliefs, what will our constituents think (or do) if they knew that we allowed faculty and students to disagree about this particular issue and openly talk about our disagreements in campus venues? Will some of our constituents stop sending us our students and their money?”

In my estimation, such a response reflects a huge lack of the Christian virtues of “courage” and “faith” at the institutional level. If confronted by a constituent who is unhappy about the college or seminary allowing disagreements and open conversation about a given issue concerning which the institution has not taken a stance (in its statement of beliefs), and about which that constituent may firmly believe that he/she has “the Christian answer,” a Christian college or seminary administrator ought to have the courage to say something like: “We intend to remain steadfastly true to our institution’s statement of beliefs, but as an educational institution we also intend to remain steadfastly true to our educational philosophy, which encourages faculty research and campus-wide conversation about issues for which our statement of beliefs allows room for equally committed Christians to disagree.” Lest you think I just made that response up, it is actually a summary of what I once said to a very disgruntled parent of one of our students in my former life as a Chief Academic Officer at a Christian college – I don’t think I changed his mind, but he needed to hear that from me as a representative of the college.

I don’t know if that parent stopped supporting the college, either through the continuing enrollment of his son or his money. But what if he did stop his support? To those who worry about a Christian college or seminary losing constituents and supporters because of an insistence on remaining true to its core theological and educational beliefs, I dare to ask the question: “Cannot God raise up new constituents who will support us precisely because we remained true to our core beliefs?” To believe otherwise reflects a lack of “faith” on the part of the institution’s leadership.

Well, “I said it and I am glad.” As you can tell by now, this is not an abstract academic issue for me. The elephant in the room will not go away. If anything, I see ominous signs of him putting on weight. We need to talk about him.