Refusing to Sign
May 14, 2012 - 3:00am
During his 14 years at Shorter University, Michael Wilson, a librarian, built a library collection for the college’s satellite campus in Atlanta. He shaped his post as the first full-time librarian for adult and professional students. Then he won tenure, and planned to stay at the Baptist college in Rome, Ga., until retirement.
Instead, last week, he effectively handed in his resignation.
Gay Voices at a Christian U.
At Biola University, an underground
group goes public, to mixed
results on the campus. Read more.
At Biola University, an underground
group goes public, to mixed
results on the campus. Read more.
In October, the college announced it would require all employees to sign a “lifestyle statement” rejecting homosexuality, adultery, premarital sex, drug use and drinking in public near the Rome, Ga., college’s campus. It also requires faculty to be active members of a local church. The statement, one of several steps the university has taken to intensify its Christian identity after the Georgia Baptist Convention began asserting more control over the campus six years ago, provoked an uproar among faculty, alumni and observers.
Before the new contracts were circulated, more than 50 members of the faculty and staff who felt they could not abide by its rules, or did not feel they should have to, resigned.
Before the new contracts were circulated, more than 50 members of the faculty and staff who felt they could not abide by its rules, or did not feel they should have to, resigned.
Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/05/14/shorter-university-faculty-leaving-over-new-lifestyle-statements#ixzz1urNWdRVK
Inside Higher Ed
I don't understand this. I don't understand how someone can enjoy the ability to worship as they please and not be grateful for that ability -- and not be happy to offer it to others. Most of these people are Christians. Isn't the Golden Rule in there?
ReplyDeleteHow is it still legal to discriminate against people based on religious belief? To the detriment of one's organization?
Because Assholes run America.
DeleteWhen they start running these sorts of loyalty/purity tests that means the college is on the skids and trying to make cuts without corporate-style downsizing.
It's all about power, whether you are telling me that I can't drink during my time off or that I have to pay some moron a minimum of $8/hr to do $3/hr work. Controlling people's lives feels good.
DeleteI always thought lifestyle oaths helped a college stand out from the crowd without any additional costs. Some schools have conservative lifestyle requirements, others have liberal oaths to uphold social justice. It's the same ploy. I never thought about Strelnikov's idea that it helps lower the payroll. That certainly happens too.
"I never thought about Strelnikov's idea that it helps lower the payroll."
DeleteBecause you weren't trained to be devious like I was.
The only problem with such training is that you can never shut it off, so you are always reading between lines even if there is only one of them. That is called the "Angleton paradox" where I am from.
We're undergoing a similar transformation here. In addition to the alienation one feels when not a member of the religious group represented by the school, it is extremely frustrating to constantly be told: "Well, you CHOSE to work there." As if tenure-track jobs in the humanities are so easy to come by. Religious institutions like ours need faculty outside the religion to maintain their reputations. This kind of reframing is a marketing decision, not an academic or moral one.
ReplyDeleteI do not really know where I stand here. Some religious universities see their instructors as religion instructors too, or at least role-models within the doctrinal/moral tenets of the sponsoring church. So, if someone does not abide by those tenets he is either teaching - being a model of what he does not practice (hypocrite) or going against the vision of the school.
ReplyDeleteI interviewed years ago with a Catholic University and was told that if I joined there I'd have to sign my agreement to "Ex Corde Ecclesiae" and obtain a "mandatum" from the local bishop. . . to teach Gerbil linguistics. They were within their rights, same as I was to not sign and take another job.
The problem is when, as in this case, the vision changes or the sponsoring institution goes all revivalist and changes the game. On the other hand, Ursula, they CHOSE to work there, and knew that they were in a religious institution.
How about when an administrative leader claims that the institution's religious mission trumps any academic missions, as happened at an institution I taught at? Although it may not hamper the teaching of Gerbil linguistics, it can have a chilling effect on the teaching of literature, history, philosophy, science . . . .
DeleteWow. 50 people with the guts to resign in this job market. Bravo! I'd like to think I'd do the same, but then again I'm a fairly hard-core and open secularist, so I probably ("prolly") wouldn't be working there anyway.
ReplyDeleteDid anyone else think of Father Guido Sarducci when they saw the title of the institution?
ReplyDeleteI suspect somebody named "Shorter" played an important role in the institution's history, but yes, it's a strange name, probably adopted before students (and others) were quite as given to snark as they are today.
DeleteDid anyone else think of Father Guido Sarducci when they saw the title of the institution?
ReplyDeleteWow, forcing people to go to church! That's kind of like forcing someone to go to college.
ReplyDeleteI'd be tempted to start attending the nearest "welcoming and affirming" congregation, of whatever denomination, just to make a point, but somehow I suspect that would somehow be seen as noncompliance with the contract.
DeleteCount me as another person who strongly supports the idea that religious institutions should be able to set their own standards for hiring, retention, and admission (though I'm perfectly happy to see there be consequences in terms of availability of accreditation, government funding, etc., etc. if they decide to ignore secular academic standards and/or civil rights laws). BUT, this "you chose" thing goes both ways, and, given that the institution chose to offer tenure (nobody's requiring that, though it certainly helps in recruiting faculty), I'm not so sure that it should be able to impose very different standards for employment after the fact.
ReplyDeleteOf course, it sounds like there's something of a power grab here, and the people currently running the institution are not the ones who hired and tenured Wilson and his colleagues over the preceding couple of decades. Given that context, I'd say that Strelnikov's theory is pretty plausible: this was the quickest way, short of closing down the college and re-opening it, to clear out the secular, non-Christian, and more liberal Christian faculty, and make way for those whose beliefs match those of the new, more conservative, board and president. And I'd guess people aren't suing (assuming they aren't) because the courts have already confirmed that the Baptist convention that owns and controls the place can do pretty much what it chooses, up to and including closure. I'm sure the AAUP will soon censure the place if it hasn't already. I also strongly suspect that nobody in power, or the (current) potential applicant pool (for employment and/or admission), will care.
Although I'm a practicing Christian who has had the occasion to update my faith statement (for various church purposes) about as often as my teaching philosophy, I've never seen a job ad requiring a faith statement that, after a bit of investigation, I'd actually consider answering. The bottom line is that I'd much prefer to work for the sort of institution Monkey describes -- and believe, contrary to what many of the fundamentalist colleges assert, that my own faith and the faith of those of my students who are believers (of whatever sort) will actually be strengthened by being in a place where freedom of conscience and discussion of issues from all sort of angles is encouraged.
Also, if I were beginning an audit of whether an institution was adhering to "Biblical principles," I'd start with questions like whether the lowest-paid employees of the institution (direct or contracted-out) were receiving a living wage and decent health and retirement benefits; how well the college was serving actual or potential students from poor backgrounds; and other signs of the institution's impact on the surrounding community & environment, the student body, and the larger world. Inventories of personal lives, if the institution decided to go that far, would need to include similarly searching questions about finances and ethical conduct of business and non-sexual personal relationships. Once everybody got through all that, it might be time for anyone who had been found without sin to start throwing stones over sexual behavior. However, if all of the above were done honestly, it's highly unlikely that there would be an eligible stone-throwers left (and, if the process were taken seriously, everybody involved would be too exhausted from trying to figure out how to create a more just world to care whom their colleagues collapsed into bed beside at the end of the day).
Picking and choosing among "Biblical principles" is something I don't understand. If Leviticus is still part of the Old Testament, there'd have to be special facilities at Shorter U to isolate menstruating women. Folks there couldn't eat shrimp or pork chops, either.
Delete"Oh, God didn't really mean THAT part of the Bible" presupposes some kind of meta-mind-reading that boggles my mind.
Yes. And if you're really going for principles (large, overriding/underlying themes/premises) rather than for a list of assorted "do"s and "don't"s, practicing economic justice definitely makes the list, while sexual rules really don't.
DeleteLove ya, Cassandra.
DeleteAnother thing I've never understood is how Christian fundamentalists simply ignore the fact Jesus says nothing about homosexuality, but about 1/3 of what he says in the New Testament is about caring for the poor and the unfortunate.
P.S. The Biola University story is more encouraging. I think it illustrates, in part, why the idea of same-sex marriage is so threatening to many who want to see gay sexual relationships as somehow inherently different from straight ones. Gay sex *inside* marriage messes up all kinds of neat conceptual boundaries essential to their worldview.
ReplyDeleteThis is so awful. At the very least, it seems that the college could only apply its policy of religious and lifestyle discrimination to new hires, not retroactively. I wish the 50 brave souls who resigned would lawyer up.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to see their definition of "church." I was raised in an evangelical brain washing system, related to the one running Shorter. The definition of church is a narrow one...