By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK
Jesse Watters is a producer of The O’Reilly Factor, Bill O’Reilly’s nightly news program on Fox News. He is regularly sent out by O’Reilly to interview the proverbial “man in the street,” hoping to entertain the audience with examples of how clueless the average American is about the issues of the day. Watters finds many such folks, in what he calls “Watters’ World.”
One place where I wish Watters would go is a college campus during a student protest against the appearance of a conservative speaker who has been invited to address a group on campus. Such protests are routine in the country these days. Patrick Buchanan, Condoleezza Rice, and David Petraeus are just a few examples of individuals who have felt the wrath of the politically correct young leftists, including physical confrontations.
The question I would like to see Watters ask the angry demonstrators is, “I thought you were a supporter of freedom of expression. Why are you denying it to conservatives you disagree with?” I don’t know what the young leftists would say in response. The politically correct double-standard they employ would seem to be indefensible, by the standards of the secular left.
I can picture some who might object that many Catholics object to proponents of abortion and same-sex marriage being invited to speak at Catholic colleges. That is true. But irrelevant. Conservative Catholics are not champions of the unlimited freedom of expression that has taken root in academic circles since the days of the “free speech” movement at the University of California at Berkeley in the 1960s. That is the left’s cause célèbre.
Moreover, I can’t think of many examples — none, in fact — of Catholics attempting to shout down and physically attack left-wing speakers on a Catholic campus, in the manner that, for example, Ann Coulter has been attacked with eggs, paint, and other thrown objects. The right-wing protests that I have seen have been limited to letter-writing campaigns, and maybe a few placards outside the auditorium where a prominent leftist is about to speak or a performance of the Vagina Monologues is scheduled.
This issue came to mind when I read the accounts in the press about Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ appearance this fall at Liberty University in Virginia. Liberty is the university founded by the late Jerry Falwell, the evangelical Southern Baptist pastor and onetime head of the Moral Majority. The university describes itself as a “Christian academic community,” with the “spiritual development” of its students a stated goal.
Sanders, now running for the Democratic nomination for the presidency, favors abortion on demand, same-sex marriage, and the homosexual agenda in general. This puts him poles apart from the overwhelming majority of Liberty’s student body. The media coverage in the days before Sanders’ appearance led one to believe that he was heading into a lion’s den full of angry Bible-belters just waiting to shout him down. Indeed, my impression was that the media were hoping that there would be such a brouhaha in order to cast Sanders in a favorable light, as a brave champion of liberal causes facing down intolerant Christians.
Nothing of the sort happened. Sanders delivered his speech without interruptions. No jeering. No catcalls. No one rushed the stage. Reporters could find no indications that Liberty’s students were given “trigger warnings” or “safe spaces” to help them deal with the trauma of hearing views contrary to their own that day.
The contrast between what happens when a conservative intellectual is invited to speak at a modern college is stark. We all have seen conservative speakers shouted down by students who stand up angrily to denounce them as racists, sexists, and homophobes. Anyone who thinks I am exaggerating can find examples of this behavior in Kirsten Powers’ new book The Silencing. Just one example would be how former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was forced to back out of giving the commencement speech at Rutgers last year, when students and faculty at the school threatened to disrupt her speech. Rice did not want to ruin the day for the graduating students and the parents, so she withdrew her acceptance of the invitation to speak.
Why this difference between the Christians and the “free-thinkers”? The students at the Jesuits’ Georgetown or the University of San Francisco are “Christian.” Yet many of them will behave as boorishly toward a conservative speaker as those at a secular university. So it is not the religious background of the student body, something in their “DNA,” that makes the difference.
Then what explains the difference? Perhaps more polite students are drawn to Christian colleges, such as Liberty. But I contend that a case can also be made that it is the faculty and administration that account for the difference in behavior. Liberty University makes an effort to hire professors who reflect — or at least do not openly speak out against — the religious sense of mission of the institution. Liberty has not been shaped by a Protestant version of the Land O’ Lakes Conference, which committed Catholic colleges in the United States to adopting the understanding of academic freedom favored by secular academicians.
This means that the university can openly encourage its students to respect others and to display civility and respect for differences of opinion, to adhere to a Christian commitment to love our neighbors as ourselves, even to love those who hate us.
We cannot ignore evidence. The students at Liberty University behaved like gentlemen and gentlewomen toward Bernie Sanders. The students at more mainstream universities, including mainstream Catholic colleges, behave like peevish, spoiled children toward those who disagree with them. Someone encouraged that intolerance. Consider the lyrics from the song from South Pacific:
“You’ve got to be taught/ To hate and fear,/ You’ve got to be taught/ From year to year,/ It’s got to be drummed/ In your dear little ear/ You’ve got to be carefully taught.”
In the online edition of National Review on September 15, Andrew T. Walker reacted as follows to Sanders’ treatment at Liberty: “Could it be that Liberty University demonstrated the fruits that follow from an atmosphere that prioritizes respect, kindness, and a forthright willingness to engage with those who hold opposing views? One would think civil, open discussion would be the norm at college campuses in America. As we all know, it isn’t.”
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Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about this and other educational issues. The e-mail address for First Teachers is fitzpatrijames@sbcglobal.net, and the mailing address is P.O. Box 15, Wallingford CT 06492.
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