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Loading ...College campuses seek balance when views collide
07.13.2009 6:00pm EDT
(Columbia, Mo.) They call it Speakers’ Circle, a First Amendment gathering spot at the University of Missouri where just about anything goes.
Confrontational evangelists condemn abortion and gay marriage. Conservative students bash President Obama’s bailout plan. The rhetoric is heated, and the discussions not always polite.College campuses have long been hotbeds of activism, from Vietnam War protests a generation ago to more recent efforts to roll back affirmative action in admissions.
But a rash of confrontations in recent years has led to a nationwide effort to promote civil debate on campus. A $4 million Ford Foundation initiative that began in 2006 and was expanded this year aims to promote dialogue on college campuses after a series of clashes between liberals and conservatives.
One of the colleges taking part in the foundation’s effort is the University of Missouri, where a survey several years ago found widespread reports of harassment targeting minority student groups.
“We’re not here to tell people what to believe and what not to believe,” said Roger Worthington, the school’s chief diversity officer. “The overall goal is to create safer places for the free exchange of ideas.”
Missouri recently hosted a Ford Foundation “difficult dialogues” workshop for campus leaders from nine schools: Alaska-Anchorage, Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, Missouri-St. Louis, Oklahoma State, Texas-Austin, Texas A&M and Texas Tech.
Participants spent four days swapping stories about volatile classroom encounters and tips on promoting academic freedom, while tolerating offensive speech without allowing racial, ethnic, cultural and religious slurs or sexually explicit remarks.
They engaged in role-playing exercises including one that simulated an unpleasant classroom encounter between an evolution-denying student and an astronomy professor struggling to control her lecture. They also learned to avoid the name-calling shout-fests that often pass for public debate on cable television and political campaigns.
“The culture wars have been ongoing in this country for many years,” Worthington said. “We can’t afford for the university to become a political battleground.”
That’s just what happened at the University of California’s Irvine campus, where disputes between Jewish and Muslim student groups escalated in the aftermath of 9/11.
At the Orange County campus, vandals struck both a Holocaust memorial and a symbolic model of the barrier separating Israel and the West Bank. When some Muslim students wore garments at graduation that critics said paid tribute to the Palestinian militant group Hamas, an outside group filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education.
The department refused to take up the complaint. But the tensions caused the school told hold its own “difficult dialogues” workshop, which led to the creation of several courses and public events designed to promote religious and cultural diversity.
Robert O’Neil, who heads the Ford Foundation effort, called the balancing act required of faculty members faced with divisive classroom comments a “constant dilemma.”
“If you react candidly, you may stifle the student’s inclination to participate,” said O’Neil, the director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression. “But if you say, ‘That’s a great point’ every time, your comments cease to have value. The issue is how to strike a balance.”
In a February essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education, scholars A. Lee Fritschler and Bruce L.R. Smith decried what they called “the new climate of timidity on campus,” a fear among professors of appearing too liberal that prevents them from speaking out or being overly cautious when it comes to confronting intolerance – or simply ignoring controversial topics.
Such an approach deprives students of one of the fundamental college experiences: the opportunity to be expose to intellectual ideas and philosophical approaches contradictory to their own, O’Neil said.
“As a constitutional law scholar, I have to address polygamy, faith healing and gay bishops, among other subjects,” he said. “My commitment is to never avoid talking about these issues, but to do so in a way that doesn’t offend students in the trenches.”
WELL SAID VICTORIA!…Well said!…You’ve perfectly crystallized my own thoughts on such matters in a perfectly articulate work of art!
I especially loved…”Yet we have to spend a portion of our time coddling the ‘LGBT Christian/Jew’ crowd who lacks the intellectual and spiritual courage to break free from poisonous traditions.”
Perfect!
Why all the effort to avoid name calling – in the case of evolution deniers especially (as dawkins says, they must be ignorant, lying or mad. toom true).
we get closer to the truth by using reason, evidence, logic. Not faith, revelation, authority or tradition. Stick uncompromisingly to that as a means of argument, or teaching, and stop respecting other people’s beliefs.
now you know dont bother going to University of Missouri… too many Evangelical Christians there…
The Christians who claim to be gay positive are the ones who criticize LGBTs for lumping them in with the other, even more hateful Christians.
No matter how much they proclaim their “love” and “tolerance”, Christians on the whole are a very hateful group.
“Free Speech is not unrestricted irresponsible speech. Just as Christians and other people of faith need to restrain our rhetoric, LGBT people also have to restrict our rhetoric.” –Wayne
No we don’t, Wayne. Only imminent violence or physical danger is a reason to proscribe speech in the United States. Religion is an ideology, unlike sexual orientation and gender identity, which, in-born or not, are fundamental parts of a person’s being. You can claim that about religion but is ultimately something one chooses to follow. Ideologies are open to any criticism even if “unrestricted” or “irresponsible”.
“Here are a few facts: First, not all Christians are homophobic. In fact, the majority of Christians are LGBT positive or neutral on the issues.” –Wayne
Being Christian in 99% of cases means they accept a ‘holy’ book which condemns homosexuality in multiple places including a call to murder gay men as the law of god. Neutrality in such cases means siding with murderous homophobia. Being “LGBT positive” means pitying condescension to our ‘inferior lifestyle’ in my experience.
“Second, when religious fundamentalists use hateful lies and fear-raising against LGBT people, they violate the commandments and have no support in scriptures (which they are abusing and twisting anyway for their own purposes).” –Wayne
Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13. Clear as day to anyone who isn’t trying to square a circle. The fundamentalists at least are honest about their religious scripture; I’ll grant them that much, unlike ‘liberal’ believers.
“Third, neither religious fundamentalist nor LGBT people can gain respect by being disrespectful to others.” –Wayne
I don’t want their respect. People who believe in violent, egomaniacal father-figure gods are not the sort of people whose good opinion I seek. The Abrhamic flocks undying hatred of LGBT people is written in their ‘holy’ books and their centuries of on-going violent persecution.
I want my CIVIL rights in CIVIL society. These religions are the epicentre of homophobia and violence against LGBT people. Yet we have to spend a portion of our time coddling the ‘LGBT Christian/Jew’ crowd who lacks the intellectual and spiritual courage to break free from poisonous traditions.
I totally understand the religion hatred expressed here. I know that there are gay positive sects, but WHERE ARE THEY in the screaming wars? The public does not see or hear from these groups, so, they have ZERO affect on the debate.
When the gay positive Christian sects organize as strongly FOR gays as their conservative counterparts have against gays, I’ll listen.
When gay positive Christians hit the radio and t.v. and scream and screech JUST AS LOUD and JUST AS OFTEN as the fundy Christians do…I’ll gain some respect for them.
The ONLY Christian voice I EVER see/hear in the media about gay issues is the anti-gay voice. As a result, the gay positive sects just look like a SMALL, irrelevant, fringe group of Apostate churches that have no real moral authority.
Gay positive Christians need to get JUST AS CRAZY in their support of gays as the Fundy Christians are in their hatred of gays! Without this action, religion IS mostly a toxic thing in the lives of gays. This can’t be denied.
After ALL of the unspeakable things that have been done to OUR community by people of faith, in the name of god, it’s amazing that some gay Christians would see fit to give a lecture to their fellow gays about respecting religion more?!…
Are you kidding me? Instead of lecturing gays about not being haters, go and talk to the STRAIGHT MEMBERS of your gay positive church and let them know how DECADES of words and actions from fellow Christians have RIGHTLY hardened the gay community’s heart towards ANY possible goodness coming from religion!…
When the straights in liberal Christian churches have their own alternative to Dobson and company, and when they shout gay positive religious messages just as often in the media…I’ll start to think that religion is not a TOTALLY bad thing.
Morgan and Bama-stu exemplify why this approach is very difficult.
Yes, we should have the ability to discuss “opposing views” civily.
But we also need to be able to define acceptable opposing views vs. bigotry.
Quite simply the religious position against us is bigotry and not a valid opposing view.
Just like that student in the mock debate heckling an astronomy professor about evolution. Not an acceptable opposing view as we teach evolution as an accepted scientific theory (as close to “fact” as you get in science) and we aren’t going to entertain delusion-based arguments against it.
If we can set boundaries then we should expect civility. If I have to listen to someone say I am a sinner (in their minds…) I am not going to respond civilly!
I will never understand why someone would join a cult that seeks to eradicate you, so I have no sympathy for Morgan asking for civility.
Can we discuss if religion has a place in your private life and views? yes. Am I going to engage in an argument of whether or not I’m an abomination? No. You take that up with me and I will attack you as severely as I can.
And to say you are a “liberal gay christian” is to show you are brainwashed. They have “liberal” versions of religion to get your money, but they still use it to fund the hate machine. It is just a front to make you feel ok joining a cult that hates you.
Sad, but not to late to quit.