The University of Toledo has fired human resources officer Crystal Dixon over her publishing in the Toledo Free Press an opinion piece objecting to the classification of homosexuals as civil rights victims.
Ms. Dixon's article articulates the statistical fact that there is no evidence of economic discrimination against homosexuals and her theological conclusion that the created order makes heterosexual behavior the norm. Along the way she notes examples of individuals who have abandoned homosexual behavior because of religious conviction and conversion. (We SWNIDishly affirm her articulation of the entire issue, for what it's worth.)
The university says that someone who holds these views cannot possibly treat employees fairly. So she's outta there, summarily fired in a work environment where the norm is perpetual employment regardless of productivity or proclivity.
The University of Toledo, one of thirteen public universities in the state of Ohio, is acting in a way that confirms what everyone seems to know about higher education but few in higher education will acknowledge: that most institutions are committed not to freedom of thought but to the dogma of the political left, and so their greatest hostility is reserved for people who think in ways that adhere to Christian orthodoxy, commonly labeled as retrograde, ignorant superstition or pathology.
Elsewhere, the University of Colorado is embroiled in controversy over the appointment of a professor of conservative thought. The established left at what is doubtless one of the most politically and socially liberal public universities on the planet decries the deliberate inclusion of a conservative. Conservatives, nearly all by definition outside the university, decry the inclusion of a labeled "conservative" as if such a creature were on display in a freak show. Then there's the question as to whether the occupant of the chair will hold conservative views or merely "study conservatives," which is to say treat them as freakish advocates of retrograde, ignorant superstition and pathology.
Meanwhile, Wheaton's careful and principled receiving of the resignation, per clear internal policies, of a professor who is divorcing and who refuses to let the circumstances of his divorce be reviewed is still the object of publicity, though in yesterday's WSJ it was positive publicity. What's positive, of course, is that Wheaton is not acting like Toledo. Wheaton makes no pretense of welcoming all points of view. It tells its people in advance where it stands. At Toledo and other public and secular private universities, everyone knows what the orthodoxies are but no one will say them clearly as matters of policy, pretending all the while to welcome diverse opinions while systematically excluding the Christian ones.
SWNID normally eschews whining about such matters, which are facts of life in this present, evil age. But some examples are just too extreme to ignore. The senior administration of the University of Toledo could not have acted in a way that more clearly confirms the unspoken reality of higher education. The folks at Boulder are more subtle but no less uncritical or even unaware of their own subculture and how it shapes their behavior.
9 comments:
Agree with you wholeheartedly on this blog. I wonder where you stand on a situation that may stand somewhere between the issues you mention here--the Cedarville University issue. Being so close to your backyard I imagine that you are aware of it, but here is a link to an article from CT on it. http://www.ctlibrary.com/ct/2008/aprilweb-only/114-43.0.html
Now, I'm admittedly biased because of my relationship with one of the parties involved, and there does seem to be a bit of he said/he said going on here, but this may be an example of a similar censorship but from a Christian organization. Thoughts?
We know surprisingly little about the Cedarville situation apart from what's been reported in the media. The CT article that you link is our first update since we briefly blogged this awhile back. So we offer what we think with the enormous caveat that we are far, far too unfamiliar with the situation to stand in SWNIDish judgment.
Our sense of it is that the dismissals had less to do with the theological positions taken by the dismissed than by their own hostility to faculty who disagreed with them. It's one thing for a Chrisitan college faculty to express different views (and even in the SWNIDish view, the hair is very finely split when the argument is about "certainty" versus "assurance"). It's quite another for one side to label the other as heretics.
What that labeling does in effect is (a) set up the particular views of one faction as the official views of the institution, even if those particulars are more particular than what the institution has defined as its position; (b) accuse those who differ of dishonesty, claiming to conform to institutional standards when in fact they do not.
It's tough to maintain a working environment, let alone a Christian one, when a department is riven with this kind of rhetoric.
Could the university administration have handled this better. Certainly! The taped statement about the timing of the dismissals relative to accreditation visits is patently not good, just as one example. Does that mean that the uncollegial colleagues should be given a pass for repeatedly accusing other members of the department of being dangerously out of bounds theologically when both could in clear conscience and in the judgment of those charged to judge such things rightly claim adherence to university theological standards? Well, no.
Could the accusers be right, that their colleagues who opt for "assurance" are liberal snakes in the grass? We affirm the existence of hypocrites and liars. But we urge caution in the application of such labels. We offer further that not all institutions follow what is uncritically regarded by many as the classic and inevitable narrative of drifting toward unorthodoxy, liberalism and secularism. There are at least as many dangers in creeping sectarianism as in creeping liberalism.
For us, a Campbellite, the Cedarville situation illustrates the awful burden of being Baptist, one that we don't intend to take upon ourselves. The article's joke about the unlikelihood of thirty Baptists voting unanimously is well conceived.
One little clarification. Wheaton College did not dismiss the professor Gramm. He resigned because he did not want to divulge the circumstances of his divorce. Wheaton even offered to let him stay on another year and he refused.
I think he may be digging in his heels when he doesn't have to in order to make some point. But I know divorce can be very painful and I suppose he is not thinking clearly right now. It's too bad. From what I hear he is a good professor.
Of course, I will not send my kids to Wheaton anyway because I just can't afford it. And from what I see the quality of the education does not justify the difference in cost compared to most of the state schools around here.
Your correction is duly noted, and the blog entry has been changed.
The calculation of value for college is highly debatable, as it is for more tangible commodities. Our judgment is that the student matters much more than the institution.
Our unsolicited, experienced advice is not to confuse the full cost of attendance with the actual cost of enrollment. Students and their parents ought to secure the best financial aid deal available before ruling out what might seem to be too expensive a college. Someone very close to SWNID attends an extremely expensive private institution for thousands less per year than the cost of attending a state university.
If the student matters more than the school (and I'll give you that point), what advantage is there to attending a school like Wheaton? Hubby is in the process of trying to hire someone and so far has been unimpressed by the Wheaton grads he has interviewed.
As far getting financial aid goes, why would more be available for a private Christian School vs. a public university? Frankly, I think the financial aid game has gotten way out of hand. It's part of the reason tuition is so high now.
It's also much more sensible to get the general ed credits out of the way at the local community college. As long as the classes transfer, who will care where you took freshman English?
There may be much or little advantage to one school over another, and the difficult calculation will be figured differently by different folk. When we say that the student matters more than the school, it's more to assure that good students learn wherever they go and tend to do well on graduation regardless of their degree. While we decry the anguish that many inflict on themselves in the search for the perfect college, we don't endorse the notion that colleges are like soybeans, a more or less standard commodity.
By the way, what matters most about the college is often who the other students are.
As to "getting general ed credits out of the way," one can indeed do that very thing at a community college, by CLEP testing, AP testing, and online, among many options. Realizing that you probably meant less disparagement of the value of general education courses than your phrasing suggests, we nevertheless urge students and parents to take the opportunity of general education very seriously, indeed to avoid colleges where general education is treated like a pointless necessity or interchangable commodity. There should be more to freshman English than just getting it out of the way. But then we care about writing, whether it's apparent in this blog or not. Same goes for the rest of learning for us.
We understand your husband's interviews might form an impression of a college's recent gradutes. We simply offer that we have many times been asked by people, referring to a recent gradute of our own institution, whether "he's typical." After we find out who the individual student was, the answer is almost always an emphatic no, followed by a wish that my conversation partner could meet about a score or two of other recent graduates who are both more impressive and more typical. We also wish that the person had known the knucklehead in question before we higher educators got ahold of him. The contrast can be instructive.
On costs, a student and family must decide what is really valuable for them, and if there were but one value equation, all colleges would be the same. But the larger point is that once institutional scholarships and aid are counted (not just federal aid, which plays a smaller role these days), in many cases private colleges become very competitive with public institutions for many individuals. Private institutions can give money to whomever they choose, and to many people, they give a lot. Don't rule out a college just on sticker price. If the kid is really interested, apply and see what kind of offer the college puts on the table.
But as a lifelong contrarian, we encourage you to resist the notion that the best college is the one that everyone says is best. We sense that your instinct is so to resist. Continue on that noble path!
I did not mean to disparage freshman English. Maybe the fact that I live in Wheaton and know many grads and a few professors and hear "Wheaton this" and "Wheaton that," constantly biases me against the school. I'm just not that impressed. I'm certainly not 30K-per-year-in tuition impressed.
I did not mean to disparage freshman English. But when my husband was a grad student, I helped him grade freshman English papers, and I was shocked at how bad they were. I am not a writer, but at least I can write in complete sentences. (Well most of the time)
Anyway, I'm getting way off the subject, so I'll stop.
Christine, you continue to induce me to make more observations.
The first is that in selecting colleges as in selecting other products, the import is always preferred over the domestic item. People who live close to particular colleges always see a lot of their worst side. However, our prejudice is for most traditional college students to go away to college.
Second, and maybe one last time, our educated guess is that hardly anyone actually pays $30k/year to go to Wheaton. A significant number of their current students doubtless receive institutional aid that makes their actual cost much more reasonable, for some perhaps as cheap or cheaper than the net cost of a state school.
So the combination leads us to encourage your offspring to consider private colleges beyond their backyard, keeping the value equation in mind but not drawing conclusions on cost and value until after they've received admission and financial aid offers from the schools that interest them.
Having recently learned from experience that a Buick Century gets better gas mileage than the much smaller Geo Prizm, we are reminded of how important it is to get all the facts before drawing conclusions on costs.
As someone who did not "go away" to college, but was a commuter student, I'm not sure why living in a dorm is preferred. I lived at home and then in an apartment because it was cheaper and more comfortable than dorm life. Sure, I may have missed out on a few parties and bad food, but not much else. I practically lived on campus except to sleep. (Well, I often napped in the library stacks.)
As far as college costs go our plan is as follows: We will contribute what we can reasonably afford to each child's education (a roughly equal amount for each). If that is not enough to get him pay for his college of choice (and I doubt it will be - public or private), the child can make it up in whatever way he can, by either getting aid, working, or taking out loans or begging grandparents.
I'm not against private colleges, but I don't think they are always the best and some really aren't worth the extra money, financial aid or not.
By the way, maybe the Geo just needed a tuneup
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