By Richard
Conklin '59M.A.
Against the backdrop of two controversial campus events, Notre
Dame's president, Rev. John I. Jenkins, CSC, has proposed a rethinking
of what constitutes academic freedom in a Catholic institution
of higher learning.
Speaking to separate open meetings of faculty and students in
January, Jenkins took up the nettlesome issues of The Vagina
Monologues, a nationally performed play about female sexuality
and identity, and the erstwhile titled Queer Film Festival. Monologues
was about to have its fifth annual performance on campus, while
the gay film event was scheduled for its third season. In a key
point, a total of eight academic entities in the College of Arts
and Letters -- six departments and two programs -- were involved
in sponsorship of the two events, both publicly opposed by Most
Rev. John M. D'Arcy, bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend.
Jenkins was careful to defend academic freedom. "Academic freedom
is essential to a university. It ensures that faculty have the
ability to research, create, teach and express themselves in accord
with their own best judgment," he said. "Appropriately applied
to students, it ensures that they have the opportunity to inquire,
express opinions, explore ideas and engage in discussion." But
he went on to note, "I do not believe that freedom of expression
has absolute priority in every circumstance. While any restriction
on expression must be reluctant and restrained, I believe that,
in some situations, given the distinctive character and aspirations
of Notre Dame, it may be necessary to establish certain boundaries,
while defending the appropriate exercise of academic freedom."
What troubled Jenkins is that the events under question "are
cases in which the University, or some unit in or recognized organization
of the University, sponsors the activity, university facilities
are used for the event, and the University's name is associated
with it." He added, "A reasonable observer would assume that the
University is sponsoring an event that is clearly and egregiously
at odds with its values as a Catholic university." He emphasized
that he was concerned "not with censorship but with sponsorship."
He differentiated his position from one dealing with the right
of an individual faculty member or student to publish a book or
article, write an editorial or a letter, expressing a view in
his or her name.
He also said he was laying out his ideas in order to solicit
responses from faculty, alumni and students, but that he "will
not lead by consensus, nor by majority vote, nor in response to
the pressures that individuals or groups inside or outside the
University may bring to bear." The response began immediately
in question-and-answer periods following both talks and carried
over into The Observer, the student newspaper. While
there was widespread appreciation for Jenkins' openness on a sensitive
topic and some support for his initiative, most campus reaction
was critical. Some said that positing a distinction between the
rights of faculty when they act as individuals and their rights
when they act collectively (e.g., as an academic unit) was untenable.
Others objected to what they saw as a false equivalence between
sponsorship and endorsement. Still others decried what they described
as a retreat from the mainstream definition of academic freedom.
Although the results are not yet known, more than 1,000 alumni
responded to an online request for comments.
The immediate result was a renaming of the film series as the
less celebratory "Gay and Lesbian Film: Filmmakers, Narratives
and Spectatorships" and the transfer of the Monologues performance
to a classroom venue without attendant fundraising for community
groups working to end violence against women. In his talk, Jenkins
made clear Notre Dame's continued support for that goal but said
he did not think Monologues an appropriate means to that
end. Notre Dame's president set no timetable for policy decisions
on the future of the two events.
A 'Catholic' university
The balance between the adjective and the noun in "Catholic university,"
the interplay of religious identity and academic mission, the
relationship of a Catholic intellectual tradition to an increasingly
secular society, are inevitably linked to another matter treated
candidly by Jenkins in his inaugural address -- the hiring of
Catholic faculty. "In the 1970s," he noted, "the percentage of
Catholic faculty [at Notre Dame] was near 85 percent; in 1984
it was 62 percent. It is currently 53 percent. With the retirement
of senior faculty who are Catholic in greater percentages, it
is likely to drop further." While reaffirming the contribution
of non-Catholic faculty to making Notre Dame a better university,
even a better Catholic university, Jenkins emphasized the ability
of a Catholic faculty member to bring a faith tradition to bear
on intellectual life. His point was clear: the DNA for Catholicism
on campus is carried by the faculty, not the administration or
the students. He promised to work with academic leaders to find
ways to attract "a faculty which includes a diversity of perspectives
and commitments but which has a preponderance of Catholics."
In a 1995 address sponsored by the Association of Catholic Colleges
and Universities, Peter Steinfels, former senior religion correspondent
for The New York Times, pointed to Catholic identity
as the pivotal issue for the future of Catholic higher education
in the country. He quoted George Marsden, McAnaney professor of
history at Notre Dame: "The puzzle is how to hold the middle ground.
How is it possible, short of reverting to repressive strictures
of earlier days, to maintain a vital religious presence, including
an intellectual presence, in a modern university? Is there any
way to retain the balance of being a university that is both Catholic
and open to many other points of view?"
The question is of interest to the Vatican as well. Speaking
at Notre Dame's Nanovic Institute for European Studies in October,
a top Curia education official said that "the Holy See's primary
concern at every level is encouraging the fostering, and, if necessary,
the reclaiming of the Catholic identity of institutions of higher
learning . . . by insisting, first, on the university's institutional
commitment to the Church and, second, on its fidelity to the Catholic
faith in all its activities." Archbishop J. Michael Miller, a
Canadian who is secretary of the Vatican Congregation for Catholic
Education, went on to speculate on Pope Benedict XVI's attitude
toward a nominally Catholic university "no longer motivated by
a strong sense of its institutional Catholic identity." The views
previously expressed by Cardinal Ratzinger would suggest, the
archbishop said, "that it is better to let it [the institution]
go, to end its claim of being Catholic." The archbishop softened
this stance somewhat in subsequent comments, but the point was
made.
Notre Dame has not been immune from prior conflicts over academic
freedom and Catholic character. Back in 1969, an ill-advised student-sponsored
conference on pornography and censorship resulted in a shuttered
erotic art exhibit and a police raid to confiscate a pornographic
film. More recently, in 1990, protests over the public showing
of the film The Last Temptation of Christ, considered
blasphemous by its detractors but sponsored on campus by the Department
of Communication and Theater, drew national publicity. On the
latter occasion, professor of law Charles Rice wrote a letter
to a conservative Catholic newspaper in which is found echoes
of Jenkins' approach. "The public exhibitions could not be justified
on the ground of academic freedom," he wrote. "If the film were
privately shown to a class for examination and discussion, no
objection would have been made."
Rice's opening target 16 years ago in his letter to The
Wanderer was the 1967 "Land O'Lakes Statement," universally
considered the Declaration of Independence of American Catholic
higher education. Drafted by a group of 26 Catholic educators,
religious leaders and lay persons under the guiding spirit of
Notre Dame's then-President Father Theodore Hesburgh, CSC, it
declared, "To perform its teaching and research functions effectively,
the Catholic university must have a true autonomy and academic
freedom in the face of the authority of whatever kind, lay or
clerical, external to the academic community itself." The document
also said a Catholic institution of higher learning must be a
place where "Catholicism is perceptibly present and effectively
operative." It remains the seminal description of the contemporary
American Catholic university.
The statement was a preliminary position paper for the International
Federation of Catholic Universities (IFCU), headed by Father Hesburgh
from 1963-70. It was during his tenure that several exchanges
between the IFCU and Rome took place concerning the nature of
the modern Catholic university, culminating in the 1972 IFCU statement
on "The Catholic University in the Modern World," promulgated
by the Vatican. It fell short of the autonomy claims in the "Land
O'Lakes Statement" but for the first time formally recognized
educational institutions not chartered by the Vatican (as is the
case with virtually all American Catholic colleges and universities)
as deserving of the appellation "Catholic" if they had certain
characteristics spelled out in the document.
Since then, the proposed revisions of canon law affecting Catholic
universities in 1981 and the 1990 papal document "Ex Corde Ecclesiae"
dealing with Catholic colleges and universities have been viewed
by most American Catholic educators as attempts to roll back the
guarantees of academic freedom necessary to be taken seriously
in the American context of higher education. The Vatican has defended
them as "truth-in-advertising," an attempt to make sure "Catholic"
is an adjective with real meaning.
Interviewed by the National Catholic Reporter, Jenkins
said, "This is not a reaction to anything out of the 'Ex Corde'
discussion. This is not a response to the bishops or to any external
pressure." Asked about the difficulty of sustaining a dialogue
when each side sees itself defending an important value -- academic
freedom on one side and Catholic identity on the other -- Jenkins
told the newspaper, "Like it or not, we are in this together,
and we have to find a way to talk to each other. What we need
is an intellectually rich and vibrant debate, one that doesn't
fall into a kind of amorphous lack of clarity about who we are
but which is open to the issues of the age."
* * *
Dick Conklin retired as associate vice president of University
Relations at Notre Dame.
(April 2006)
