Consider No Evil: Two Faith Traditions and the Problem of Academic Freedom in Religious Higher Education

Consider No Evil

Two Faith Traditions and the Problem of Academic Freedom in Religious Higher Education

Brandon G. Withrow

and Menachem Wecker

Consider No Evil

Two Faith Traditions and the Problem of Academic Freedom

in Religious Higher Education

Copyright © 2014 Brandon G. Withrow and Menachem Wecker. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Cascade Books

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

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isbn 13: 978-1-62032-489-9

eisbn 13: 978-1-63087-318-9

Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Withrow, Brandon.

Consider no evil : two faith traditions and the problem of academic freedom in religious higher education / Brandon G. Withrow and Menachem Wecker.

xviii + 198 pp. ; 23 cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.

isbn 13: 978-1-62032-489-9

1. Academic freedom. 2. Scholars—Religious life. 3. Universities and colleges—United States—Religion. I. Wecker, Menachem. II. Title.

LB2324 .W58 2014

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

To my father, Greg:

You taught me to think for myself,

but I’ve never felt that meant to think alone.

Thanks for the spirited discussions over breakfast at the cafe.

—BGW

To my grandfather:

Although we didn’t always agree on every religious topic,

you were an inspiration to me always.

I miss you every day.

—MW

Acknowledgments

From both authors:

We are deeply appreciative of the magic that Mindy Rice Withrow introduced to our chapters. She truly has all of the gifts of the Greek Muses, and it seems criminal for her name not to appear on the cover as well.

From Brandon:

Sitting across from my bookshelves, I imagine the horde of names that fill those acknowledgments—hundreds of people without whom my shelf would be bare. The same could be said for this book, which would not be possible without those whose personal stories gave me cause to write it (Peter Enns, Sam Logan, Steve Taylor, and Doug Green).

I’m grateful to my coauthor, Menachem, whose friendship was unexpected but now prized. We discuss religion 140 characters at a time; it may not be efficient, but it is always illuminating.

My thoughts have repeatedly turned to my fellow students and administrators, especially those who uniquely understand this book because of our shared grief, particularly Mark and Karyn Traphagen, whose abilities to chart new paths are inspiring, and Art Boulet, whose snark will always get a like on Facebook. I’m similarly grateful to Diana and Jeff Frazier for the many Friday nights talking near the pool. Nothing makes a controversy go down better than a finger of scotch.

To my family, who make an appearance in the first chapter: I love you dearly and wouldn’t change a thing (well, maybe just one or two).

Thanks to my newest community of friends, who have nothing to do with these controversies; you’re a breath of fresh air. To my research assistant, Brandon Goodling: thank you for your careful sleuthing; you’re a fantastic scholar. MaryAnn Mead, you’ll find what you are looking for in chapter 3.

Finally, I’m grateful to Paul Raushenbush, my editor at The Huffington Post; to Jahnabi Barooah, former assistant editor at HuffPost, whose work has modeled for me how modern religious thinkers can contribute to the betterment of society; and to the editors at Cascade, Charlie Collier and Christian Amondson, for having faith in another volume.

From Menachem:

I am very thankful to my many friends, relatives, and teachers who have allowed me to speak freely and endured my often misguided notions and theories, and—perhaps most importantly—to all the rabbis, teachers, administrators, and others who have, inadvertently, showed me the value of academic freedom by so skillfully exhibiting the inverse. I would also like to acknowledge the input of the many people I interviewed for this book, many of whom asked not to be named.

Above all, I am extremely grateful to Brandon for his careful readings of my chapters and for holding my hand (so to speak) as I waded through the scary waters of academic citations and footnotes.

Introduction

Brandon G. Withrow

Buridan’s ass is a classic tale—a dilemma—of a donkey that is equally hungry and equally thirsty. Walking along the center of a path, he discovers an alluring pail of water on one side and a hearty bucket of hay on the other, but each was equally distant from where he stood. What does he do?

Water is the logical priority, I assume, one student says as I present this tale in a philosophy class. Students automatically think of the donkey as a person, as if it has a rational mind.

Remember what happens when we assume, I remind the students. They chuckle. The point of the story is that a donkey is not rational, and without an overwhelming desire for either water or food, or a rational mind to push it one way or another, it will die in the path.

Human beings, so goes the point, are not like donkeys. None of us can have a Buridan’s ass moment. We have motivations for what we do, and there is no truly libertarian free will. Decision-making motivators may be encoded in our genes or introduced by outside forces, but at some point we are pushed one way or the other off the path and toward the logical destination.

Likewise, academic freedom can never be absolutely free. Many of us in academia might imagine a moment when we could say and do whatever we think best without overt influence by others. But the reality is that we are limited—limited by the vision of a school’s administration, by the professional standards of our specific specializations, or, if in a religious institution, by the boundaries of the faith statement of our tradition.

In this book, Menachem and I set out to look at the restrictions placed on the academic freedom of students and professors by the traditions of their communities. We each look at stories of those within our respective traditions who have come under suspicion, been disciplined or fired for their challenges to the status quo of their universities, colleges, and seminaries. These are tragic stories—real conflicts within communities, affecting the everyday lives of real people—set in both Christian and Jewish worlds; they demonstrate that despite the differences between these religions, there are shared themes and concerns when it comes to religious education today.

An outsider’s view on these situations may give the impression that these are simple cases of semantics, or good guys defending a tradition from cultural takeover, or entitled faculty members complaining about a loss of privilege. But an insider’s view reveals the historical nuances, the unique considerations of academia, the damage caused by strong-willed leaders making unilateral decisions, the malignancy of a community turned upon itself, and the complexities of the human element present in every situation.

The Human Dilemma of Today’s Academy

It’s the human side of these stories that so many overlook. Why, someone once asked me, would anyone stay at a seminary when they question its confession of faith? Why don’t they just leave? Where is that person’s integrity? The answer is complex. So from the start of this discussion, it is important to understand why the loss of a faculty position may be devastating, and why the chance to avoid such a situation might compel someone to remain silent about her sexual orientation or his changing beliefs. Students may see faculty as intellectuals with significant power on the world stage, but the reality is that our worlds are very fragile, and that fragility is increasing every year. In fact, that is why a book like this is necessary.

There is no job hunt like the hunt for a faculty position. If you’ve had this experience, then you understand why I bring it up as an example of the tenuousness of academic life; and if you haven’t had this experience, putting yourself in the shoes of the faculty position seeker will go a long way in helping you understand the concerns of this book.

Institutions generally begin their searches at least a year or more from their hire date, which means unemployed faculty applying for these positions have a long wait. For employed faculty whose conflicts involve theological disagreement with their institutions, the length alone of this process makes the prospect of finding a new position daunting and encourages silence. (That silence may be a possible solution in some instances, as not all mountains are worth dying on—and I’ll address this more in chapter 7—though it rarely ends well.)

Unlike many jobs familiar to the public, most academic positions require a significant application process that goes well beyond a curriculum vitae (an academic resume) and application letter. A bundled faculty application may include significant statements on teaching philosophy, research plans, and multiple recommendation letters from colleagues (which can be complicated to obtain for those who don’t want to draw attention to their impending exits). They may also include writing samples, demonstrations of teaching competency, sample syllabi, and sample student evaluations. Most require transcripts from all higher educational institutions attended, and if copies do not suffice, applicants likely must pay for official copies.¹

After the extended preparation of this overstuffed manila envelope, the hopeful candidate is greeted by deafening silence. Depending on how the search committee is managed, that silence may continue for months, resolved only by the dreaded form letter or email. That pain is only increased if the candidate has already invested in the hope of interviewing for the position at his or her annual professional association meeting—a common interview location for many hiring schools—and unemployed academics often drop $1,500 to $2,500 on a credit card to cover hotel, flight, and meeting registration, only to discover that they won’t be invited to interview there after all.

What do you do then? Apply for another position. Weep. Repeat.

I’m not trying to overdramatize this common experience but to point out how it contributes to the situations described in this book. Part of the problem in the academic job market today is one of production. The number of new PhDs continues to outpace the number of available academic posts each year. Like scavenger birds fighting over a fresh corpse along the interstate, academics eagerly push their way in, hoping to peck away at a small piece of the carcass. But the numbers are against them.

Consider a PhD in history, for example. According to the American Historical Association (the primary professional society for many historians), the number of advertised positions during the 2011–12 academic year was 740 (627 jobs were posted in the previous year). The number of new PhDs granted in the same academic year was approximately 1,100 (a year earlier that figure was 1,066).² Now figure in that new PhDs are competing with existing and still unemployed PhDs who lost their positions during the economic downturn. If you’re not yet sufficiently depressed by the numbers, consider that more and more colleges and universities are hiring contingent faculty (adjuncts and shorter-term, contract-based employment), rather than traditional full-time, tenure-track professors. Adjunct faculty are now a collective of PhDs in poverty, cobbling together part-time teaching posts without benefits and hoping to make their rent. The abundance of production and the decreased demand for full-time faculty has turned academia into an intellectual version of the dollar store.

At Kalamazoo Valley Community College, for example, which hires more than 300 part-time faculty members who earn approximately $2,400 per course (for 15 weeks of work), adjunct work is nothing more than a poorly paid internship. Full-time faculty at Kalamazoo, recognizing that their contingent colleagues would not receive their first paychecks until a full month after the start of class, pooled together a pantry of food items, gift cards, and cash to help them get through the dry weeks of work without pay.³

Aside from the dreaded job market, there also may be conflicting considerations of integrity that can impact one’s decision to leave. To those well suited to their school’s faith statements, it may look like a lack of integrity if a faculty member remains in a position even when his or her changing beliefs conflict with those espoused by the school. But it is a problem of cognitive dissonance, that is, two points of concern that appear at odds and make a clear decision feel impossible. Is it more important to resign over some degree of doctrinal disagreement or to feed, clothe, and shelter your family? What if you have a sick spouse or child and you need to keep your health insurance? What responsibility do professors have to the students who traveled across the country to study with them specifically, or to those whose dissertations or theses they are chairing? Is it worth it to uproot children, pulling them from their grandparents or schools, and incur significant expenses in order to move across the country for a temporary or adjunct position?

There are no simple solutions for faculty who must leave their teaching posts, and that anxiety can be increased significantly when the leaving is involuntary. For those who work in schools where new leadership or growing donor influence are driving changes in what faculty suddenly must now affirm in their beliefs, lifestyle, or sexual orientation, there may be little time on the clock to find an amicable solution. Even worse, since many religious institutions are exempt, they do not contribute to unemployment, meaning that when a professor is let go for ideological reasons there is no public help to offset the attending financial difficulty.

And a faculty member who feels he or she was unjustly fired, based on beliefs, gender, or race, cannot necessarily sue for damages. In 2009, two tenured professors, Laurence H. Kant and Jimmy Kirby, were let go from Lexington Theological Seminary for reasons of financial exigency, according to the seminary. Both faculty members sued, asserting that they believed race played a role (Kant is Jewish and Kirby is black). But the courts refused to hear their cases even upon appeal. In order to uphold the Establishment Clause, U.S. courts treat religious faculty as ministers, even though no denomination assumes official ordained roles of professors just because they are faculty at their schools. (Being Jewish, as Kant noted, meant he would not have been considered a minister in any Christian church.) But the courts interpreted the case as a religious matter in which they could not get involved. So proving discrimination or enforcing tenure contracts may be impossible if, as in this case, an institution can convince a court that it is a religious matter.⁴

Leaving an academic position—voluntarily or involuntarily—is therefore neither easy nor simple. The examples in this book of faculty (and students) who have run afoul of the religious limitations of their institutions are intended to demonstrate the real problem of academic freedom in a religious context. We put these situations into a historical framework and attempt to offer some potential solutions to help individuals and institutions avoid such situations in the future.

The Story of This Book

Menachem and I met in 2008. After I had written a piece for The Chronicle of Higher Education on being a PhD in a world of social media, blogging, and online education,⁵ he contacted me to do an interview, first for his blog and then for the Houston Chronicle. We’ve been friends ever since, chatting weekly through Twitter and Facebook. I went on to become an assistant professor of the history of Christianity and religious studies, teaching at a seminary and a university; he became an education reporter for U.S. News & World Report and freelanced as an arts and religion reporter. We finally met in person late in the summer of 2012 over dinner at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, where we signed the contract for this book.

The idea for the book came from a piece I wrote, in 2011, for The Chronicle of Higher Education titled Finding Empathy in Religious Studies. Menachem and I had a long conversation about the article and how it related to experiences we had had within our own faith traditions. When he suggested that the themes of the article deserved a book-length exploration, I agreed to pursue it if he would join me as the coauthor. Thus Consider No Evil: Two Faith Traditions and the Problem of Academic Freedom in Religious Higher Education was born.

How to Read This Book

This volume is a personal, analytical look at higher education. Menachem and I were raised in very conservative households and attended conservative educational institutions. Our two personal stories make up Part One of this book. While we were raised according to different religious traditions—his Orthodox Jewish, mine conservative Evangelical Christian—we discovered many similarities in what we experienced with our families, in our educational endeavors, and in our current trajectories. So the two chapters in Part One may be read as our memoirs, offering some insight into the worlds in which we were raised and the presuppositions that guided our educational pursuits. They also connect our stories to controversies at the educational institutions we attended, laying the foundation for analysis in subsequent chapters.

In Part Two, we turn to the history of education in each of our traditions. My chapter explores the world of Western education and its entanglement in Christian theology. Menachem’s chapter focuses on the Jewish story of education in exile, where scholars learned in community, without the brick and mortar that laid the foundation for the established schools of Western Christianity.

Part Three jumps ahead to more recent history, where we examine controversies at universities, colleges, and seminaries since the turn of the millennium. These stories return to schools we know well, looking at controversial professors and institutional revolutions that turned life upside down for faculty and students. Here we attempt to diagnose some of the problems that lead to faculty terminations and student confrontations.

And finally, Part Four ventures into the world of potential solutions. While not at all exhaustive, our comments call for a reexamination by religious institutions of their priorities, and encourage faculty and students to take stock of the reality they embody.

This book is not designed to be comprehensive. Menachem and I intentionally set out to stick closely to the traditions we know best. We discovered that across our religious traditions we had common experiences and concerns about religion and higher education. We believe that even though we ride close within our narrower traditions, others will—like us—recognize these common threads in their own traditions, and perhaps benefit from our proposals.

So while I discuss the history of Christian education and broad concerns of theology or higher education, I am ultimately tying this to the conservative educational world I know best; and as a professor, my chapters are primarily centered on issues surrounding faculty. But Menachem’s chapters closely follow happenings at Yeshiva University, his alma mater, and students and the student experience will feature more prominently in his case studies.

Lastly, there are two ways to read this book, and unlike the example of Buridan’s ass, one may be more appealing than the other. The first is to read it from beginning to end, as you read any other book. The second way is to read by author. In the first approach, our topics will be consistent but our distinct voices will be heard from one chapter to the next; in the second approach, our stories will flow more independently and provide a more consistent experience.

However you read, it’s our belief that what follows will resonate with many. And it’s our hope that it will help prevent more stories like those examined here.

1. Transcripts at some institutions are free for the first few requests; at others they cost anywhere from two to ten dollars each. Multiplied by thirty or fifty or a hundred applications, this can become a financial burden for the unemployed academic.

2. June, Jobs for Historians, para.

3

.

3. Dunn, Part-Time Faculty Wait for Payday, para.

11

.

4. Basu, Tenure at Risk, paras.

3

–

4

,

10

,

15

.

5. See Withrow, Not Your Father’s PhD.

part one

Our Stories

1

No Good Education Goes Unpunished

Brandon G. Withrow

The boy tosses in his bed and calls out to his father. At nine years old, he knows there are no ghosts. He does not need a glass of water. He’s not sick. So what’s troubling him?

His mind whirls with what-ifs. What if he’s not really a Christian? What if his first, second, and third time of receiving Jesus into his heart weren’t real? What if hell has a special place just for unrepentant little boys?

His father, a pastor accustomed to addressing the spiritual doubts of others, walks in and places a soothing hand on his shoulder. Do you want to pray again? he asks.

Yes.

And so they do.

Saying I’m a pastor’s kid is more than a statement of identity; it’s a confession. Being around other pastors’ kids (PKs for short) resembles an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. We confess our unhealthy relationship to the church and the damage it has caused. Unlike AA meetings, however, many of us are still in that unhealthy relationship—though there are plenty of PKs who can tell you the exact date of their last drink.

This chapter is an admission of perspective. I was raised, educated, and now teach in the evangelical world. These pages reflect my time in three conservative evangelical schools, their controversies as experienced through my student eyes, and how these institutions and their controversies shaped my educational and career direction. It’s a story of theologians struggling for control and how theology has served their narratives. My understanding of religious higher education is deeply entwined with these experiences; my conclusions are inseparable from this phenomenology. For that reason, I begin with a short memoir, and a fair warning: it’s not always a positive story.

In the Beginning

My father, born William Gregory, is Greg to his friends. Like his father before him, he struggled with alcohol abuse in