Intellectual Freedom and Sacred Studies
Kenneth Wagner, Radford University

In a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education NAS director Stephen Balch illustrates the failure of the ideals of the 1915 AAUP Declaration of Principles to prevent orthodoxy from rearing its head on many college campuses. Lamentably Balch notes that too often "yearnings to preserve a comfortable environment of orthodoxy trump the interest in maintaining free debate." Dr. Balch's remarks remind us of both the long history and present crisis involving academic freedom. While we have seen progress thanks to the efforts of organizations like the NAS or FIRE, still attacks on academic freedom are all too common. With such battles still challenging us with alarming frequency, many have understandably paid little attention to the battle for academic freedom on a different yet crucial front: that of the many private religious institutions of higher education found throughout this nation.

Religious institutions of higher education are not new phenomena. They have been with us since the founding of such venerable institutions as Harvard and Princeton, but recently they have achieved phenomenal, though quiet, growth. In her popular new book God on the Quad, author Naomi Schaefer Riley chronicles the interesting and valuable pluralism found in several religious institutions across the United States. There are now more than 700 such institutions with 1.3 million graduates to date, and evangelical institutions are growing fastest, reporting a 60 percent increase in enrollments from 1990 to 2002.

Since their inception over 100 of these colleges (according to the Chronicle of Higher Education) have included statements of faith or similar documents which faculty and students must subscribe to (orally or in writing). Statements of faith differ from institution to institution but often include items such as Biblical inerrancy and literal creationist readings. These statements have teeth; violation of them through pedagogy, research, or activism can be grounds for punitive action (including termination). Several high profile cases of such dismissals have brought attention to the statements and stirred some debate as to their propriety. The bulk of the debate has centered on the procedural issues of vagueness or arbitrary enforcement of such statements. While certainly important, I submit that this focus misses the larger though less commonly addressed picture of whether such statements are appropriate at all.

Proponents of such restrictions on academic freedom by religious institutions make several articulate and intelligent arguments in their favor. Probably the most commonly made argument in favor of religious institutions demanding orthodoxy is the argument that academic freedom, like many freedoms, is not and should not be an absolute freedom. Thus, George Mardsen claims

all educational institutions impose limits on what may be said or taught; religious institutions will simply determine those limits somewhat differently than will nonreligious ones. These are relative differences, not absolute differences in kind between some schools that are "free" and others that are "unfree."

It is important to concede sadly that academic freedom is imperfectly honored in secular institutions. Faculties often feel constrained by some de jure restrictions (such as policies on inappropriate speech and professional standards) and numerous de facto constraints (such as unofficial ideological constraints of "political correctness," matters of "office politics," and the like). While most liberal-minded people will lament many of these constraints (such as the rampant, despicable forms of left-wing political correctness and tiresome office politics), few would jettison them all. As Thomas Reeves of the conservative Wisconsin Policy Research Institute says in this very Forum, academic freedom does not include the freedom to state that the moon is made of green cheese.

It is important however to draw distinctions between these restrictions and the ones on trial here. First, and rather obviously, it must be noted that religious institutions will have all of the above restrictions to wrestle with in addition to their explicitly stated proscribed answers to controverted questions. There is a reason for that. Some of these restrictions are inevitable in order to foster environments where learning and creative debate can take place (restrictions on racial epithets and cursing for example). Others are the inevitable result of human nature (office politics and unofficial ideological peer pressure).

What about restrictions made by professional standards? As the proponents of statements of faith concede, the issue turns on which qualifications are appropriate. Yes, a person is restricted from stating that the moon is made of green cheese and the like, because these issues have been settled (in large part due to academic freedom) by the professionals of their field. Whether the Bible is inerrant, or whether the world was created in six days, are certainly much more "controverted questions" (to quote the exact language from the 1915 AAUP Declaration). Restrictions on such questions are indeed a restriction different in kind, not degree from restrictions made through professional standards of competence. These restrictions, fostered by the right wing counterparts of left wing proponents of orthodoxy, whom theologian Richard Neuhaus refers to as "fundamentalists" and describes as "anti-intellectuals outside the university," are examples of dogmatism.

A second claim made by supporters of statements of faith and the like is simply that they are not restrictions because the students and faculty voluntarily associate with the institution. Speaking in the Chronicle of Higher Education former Calvin College President assuages fears of restrictions by noting, "Most professors seek out a faith based institution because it is in line with their worldview." Likewise, Mardsen doubts the chilling effect on faculty under such restrictions: "They, after all, have freely chosen to work under such confessional constraints." Of course, the recent controversies in which well evaluated and popular faculty have been dismissed from institutions based on violating the restrictions on academic freedom would call this claim into question.

A basic knowledge of the academic job market informs one that many take positions with institutions that they are not necessarily wholly endorsing, though they will be competent members of wherever they can find work. Most telling though would be this: what of the faculty member who comes to an institution fully ascribing to the statement of faith through reaching the same conclusions from his pursuit of truth who then, following that same pursuit, finds a different view of truth. Are we to say such persons must be willing to end their examination of certain issues upon accepting employment at these institutions -- that if they honestly reach a different conclusion than they previously held, they must either suppress their findings from their students and colleagues or leave their gainful employment? One is led to believe that Pontus Pilate can ask "what is truth" but not a hire of a religious institution that demands orthodoxy.

A third argument seen frequently in defense of forced orthodoxy for religious colleges is that such dogma is necessary in order to retain their religious nature. In an article in First Things Editor James Nuechterlein argues that moves toward academic freedom such as found in secular colleges present a "clear and present danger" and that in an "incremental process so subtle and gradual as hardly to be noticed" religious institutions will have to "give up the particular religious commitments for which they presumably exist."

Even a casual reader will notice the problem in this kind of argument. Religious higher education claims to have found a Truth, but then claims that only through administratively enforced orthodoxy can this truth be defended. The claim of Neuhaus seems more correct: "Freedom, academic freedom, is necessarily related to truth." Empirical reality seems to justify this assumption. As noted above there are over 700 religious institutions of higher education, yet only a little over 100 deem an enforced orthodoxy to be necessary in order to preserve their religious mission and protect their Truth. Religious institutions should embrace rather than shun the intellectual curiosity as leading to greater respect for the Truth. To quote Neuhaus again "A Christian university has as its premise the knowledge that all truth is one and all ways to truth are one because the Author and the End of truth is One."

Academic freedom is an important particular manifestation of the general idea of freedom of speech. As the Supreme Court noted in Sweezy v. New Hampshire (perhaps the most famous academic freedom case) "[m]ere unorthodoxy or dissent from prevailing mores is not to be condemned. The absence of such voices would be a symptom of grave illness in our society." Interestingly many religious institutions bill themselves as little communities, little societies. To the extent this is true, the prevention of such unorthodox voices would also be a grave symptom for these communities. Let us hope that these institutions, which would readily agree that the truth will set them free, can realize that forced orthodoxy will inhibit the search for that same liberating truth.

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