Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 26, 1995 TAG: 9503250012
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: G-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALAN SORENSEN EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
My wife may be giving this year to the alma mater we share - but I'm having second thoughts. Yale University agreed the other day to return $20 million to a donor who had sought to fund instruction in the history of Western civilization. If Yale doesn't need $20 million, it probably doesn't need the pittance I'd send.
Zillionaire Lee M. Bass waited four years, it seems, for his Texas-size gift to be allocated for its intended purpose. Had he desired to support, say, the study of Post-Poststructuralist Criticism, students might this very semester be attending lectures in a spanking-new Bass Center for the Study of Post-Poststructuralism.
But Bass wanted to fund Western civilization. Reportedly because the study of non-Western societies would be left out, professors at Yale raised a multicultural miff. The dispute grew ugly, and stretched with no end in sight, and the frustrated philanthropist finally asked for his money back.
I'll admit Bass may have been trying to buy a bit of influence over curriculum. If he sought to control faculty hires, for example, that would be unacceptable. Still, I can't believe a reasonable understanding was beyond reach. He is not accused of trying to stipulate that the school couldn't teach about other cultures. He merely declined to endow Yale to do that with his money.
I'm sorry, but repudiation of support for Western civilization is not, in my book, a victory for academic freedom and integrity.
And this, sad to say, isn't the first time my alma mater has faltered in its commitment to uphold the Western values of freedom of inquiry and expression.
When I was attending two decades ago, several groups tried to invite Nobel laureate and racist propagandist William Shockley on campus to speak. Each time, the invitation had to be rescinded at the behest of the university and under threats of disruption or violence. Finally, a debate was scheduled between Shockley and National Review publisher William Rusher. It didn't happen, because about a quarter of the audience shouted down the speakers and forced officials to cancel the event.
A couple of years before, anti-war protesters had occupied the Law School auditorium, including the stage, and prevented invited guest Gen. William Westmoreland from speaking.
These and other episodes prompted a university committee, headed by historian C. Vann Woodward, to write up excellent standards protecting freedom of expression on campus. But as Nat Hentoff, in his book ``Free Speech for Me, But Not for Thee'' recounts, these guidelines were soon ignored, in 1986, when a sophomore put up posters satirizing a 12-day series of campus events, the fifth annual Gay and Lesbian Awareness Days.
Though offensive and in bad taste, the posters were neither obscene nor libelous. Yet the student received two years' probation and a formal reprimand on his record anyway. ``If my sentence is not overturned, please advise me as to other views that I am also not allowed to criticize,'' he wrote to his university prosecutors. Fortunately, a later change in administration reversed the ruling against him.
A decade later, the expanded instruction in Western civilization that Bass wanted to fund will not be available now. It doesn't come for free.
Neither does free speech. Its high price includes an obligation to tolerate expressions of ideas with which we disagree.
I believe Western civilization has grown dominant in the world not simply because it has been more repressive in some ways than other cultures, but also because it has been less repressive when it comes to free thought and inquiry. Yale professors should know this.
Incidentally, if Bass if looking for another repository for his money, I can think of universities around here that would gladly add courses in any number of disciplines.
by CNB