Whose Line Is it, Anyways?
Interesting note on a recent move by Vanderbilt University to require student organizations to come into line with it's nondiscrimination policies.
First off, this is not surprising. This will more and more become the norm unless there are some pretty fundamental reversals in cultural philosophy. Quickly.
But what interests me is the rationale. "We are committed to making our campus a welcoming environment for all of our students."
What does that mean? It would seem to mean that the university desires to eliminate anything that might possibly offend or contradict what potential and current students already seem to think is right. The university exists now not to be a place where people encounter divergent attitudes and understandings about the world, but rather a place that reinforces the narrow confines of personal comfort that people are expected to already have in place. What sort of an education is this?
All manner of very controversial student groups have found homes on university campuses over the decades under this understanding that the university environment - of all places, perhaps - is one where people ought to have the ability to express themselves and for others to hear what they are saying. Political groups, sexual groups, social groups, and religious groups have all enjoyed a level of acceptance on college campuses not always experienced in society at large.
But that apparently isn't what higher education is to be about any longer. That's troubling.
I attended a huge public university for my undergraduate degree. I was aware that there were many, many people who held views either divergent or completely contradictory to my own. I knew that there were student organizations devoted to causes and beliefs that fundamentally contradicted my own deeply held convictions. I never felt 'unwelcome' because these groups existed, however. I was free to investigate them or ignore them as I saw fit. My expectations of the university was that it provide the context within which exposure to new ideas and conflicting viewpoints could take place in a somewhat mature and intelligent fashion. The idea that the school should act so that I never be offended, never be challenged, never be forced out of my comfort zone never crossed my mind. Wasn't that what large portions of the previous twelve years of my education were about? Wasn't college coming into the real world, in a limited fashion?
It seems to me that a university sponsors official student organizations not because it agrees explicitly with what they say and do, but because the existence of divergent attitudes and beliefs is ultimately a benefit to the student population. That seems to no longer be the case, now.
Indeed. Well written. But then, can you envision a scenario where a school should prohibit an organization from meeting? Under what conditions would that be appropriate?
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I would imagine it would have a great deal to do with student safety. In many years with a religious organization (an LCMS campus ministry) that was registered as an official student organization with a major public university, we would hear about other groups that were denied that status because of allegations of cult-like recruiting and behavior. An organization that endangers students in some tangible way (as opposed to challenging their beliefs or understandings philosophically, theologically, or intellectually) would need to be denied official status as a student organization, even if they were still allowed to come on campus in a non-official status.
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