Washington U Stands with Schafly

I would argue that an honorary degree does more than “convey a sense of institutional endorsement” — it IS institutional endorsement. To that end, Washington University has done far more than stir up lively conversation; it has taken a position — and one that openly and jarringly opposes women, non-heteros, the teaching of evolution, etc. Seems antithetical to any kind of scholarly environment. Doesn’t matter how many PR statements the administration gives, Washington U stands with Schlafly. That really says it all.

Sociologist, at 8:30 am EDT on May 16, 2008

Unequivically honorable as a litmus test

Dr. Shapiro’s enticing principles leave us with some practical difficulties in implementation.

If we accept her requirement that a recipient be “unequivically honorable,” it might be argued (even though Dr. Shapiro isn’t making this argument) that anyone who opposed the ERA would fail to qualify.

I remember the sense of puzzlement I experienced as a college student in the 1970s and a supporter of the ERA (I mean, how could you not support it?) when I discovered that the Presidents of the women’s colleges were insisting that their insititutions should be allowed to continue denying admission to men even after the ERA passed.

Hope this thought doesn’t get me kicked out of the ranks of the “unequivically honorable.”

chris b, at 9:50 am EDT on May 16, 2008

Nothing New

Why does this story not surprise me? So much for academic freedom.

Robin West, at 11:05 am EDT on May 16, 2008

“Vigorous Debate?”

It’s completely disingenuous for any university to act as if an honorary degree is an objective acknowledgment of someone’s contribution to things as vague as “vigor” in public discourse. By that standard, any jerk who talks long and loud enough deserves an honorary Ph.D. With this award, Washington University is honoring Schlafly, not any “vigorous debate” to which she may have contributed. In so doing, the board of trustees has made an unequivocal endorsement of her politics. If this is to be the outcome of such awards, then we are better off without the honorary degree.

Cary Nathenson, at 11:30 am EDT on May 16, 2008

Consequences addressed rather than conclusions jumped to

Dr. Shapiro:

I wasn’t trying to jump to conclusions so much as I was (perhaps lamely) trying to anticipate the consequential arguments a board of trustees will encounter in attempting to apply the principle you articulate.

If equality for women is a value that Wash. U. supports, is there not under your principle a compelling argument to be made that any prominent opponent of the ERA should not be honored? Again, I don’t assert that YOU are making this argument, because your comment was silent on that question.

As to the identity question, I’m in general agreement, with exceptions for special cases, such as people who contributed to civil rights organizations in the south in the 1950s. In those instances, for example, I think people were entitled to attempt to preserve their anonymity.

In my case, having just watched an employee at the Univ. of Toledo get fired for writing a (by my lights) stupid letter to a newspaper editor, I prefer to remain private. This may afford me some limited amount of protection in case I say something stupid here, though I hope I don’t. I also remember learning in college that arguments were evaluated on their merits, not based on who was advancing them.

I hope this dosn’t sound defensive or tendentious, because I hold you in the highest respect.

chris b, at 12:30 pm EDT on May 16, 2008

Honorary Degrees

Here’s a tack I haven’t seen expressed. Some honorary degrees, some commencement speakers, and some annual honorees have been chosen because the university has received or hopes to receive large financial gifts from these successful individuals. The university could entirely avoid the “free speech” and “academic freedom” issues by conveying a form of recognition that does not make any connection to academic issues. Something like “friend of the university” or “outstanding alumnus” or other non-committal recognitions have been and should be used to reward these successful individuals. To paraphrase the statement, “a celebrity is someone who is famous for being well-known,” one could say, “an honoree is someone who is famous for needing a large tax deduction.” My guess is that most of these wise folks do realize what is happening and are happy to bask in the glory anyway.

Betty, Associate Dean of Continuing Education, at 12:45 pm EDT on May 16, 2008

Betty said it beautifully — it’s about the moneybags, folks. And Sgt. Savage is dead wrong that you have to be liberal to get an honorary doctorate. All you have to be is rich — and there are plenty of conservatives in that club.

AK, at 1:20 pm EDT on May 16, 2008

Pot, Meet Kettle

Mister K:

You wrote: “Washington University is a private institution. It is not subsidized by the taxpayers (at least not, I would guess, any more than your typical large business would be subsidized via tax breaks, etc.).”

Astonishing. Let me assure you that Wash U. receives a substantial portion of its revenues from state and federal government sources. This is in addition to the government-subsidized loans its students receive. And despite the University’s tax-exempt status, you point out that “your typical large business” (is) “subsidized via tax breaks.”

There’s a reason the Massachusetts legislature is eyeing Harvard’s multi-billion dollar endowment, you know.

chris b, at 3:25 pm EDT on May 16, 2008

The conference of honorary degrees happens for many reasons. Schools generally confer one upon their commencement speaker. They confer them upon successful alumni. They confer them upon generous benefactors. They confer them upon artists, scientists, scholars, and others who have made significant contributions to the world around us.

There is also another reason that they are conferred: publicity. Schools seek to be noticed for who their honorary degree recipients are. Sometimes this is the main reason a commencement speaker/honoree is chosen. There are booking agencies that specialize in signing up celebrities as honorees, for a (hefty) fee. The ideal honoree is one who is so famous that a ten second blurb of them will show up on the evening news. This is why politicians, actors, and news people tend to dominate these invitations. It is a chance to get the school’s name out there in the news.

Washington U has hit the publicity jackpot with its invitation to Ms Schlafly, just as Boston College did a few years back when the Irish Catholic faculty members demanded that the invitation to Lady Thatcher be revoked.

I doubt that there is little if any political values that Washington U or Boston College hold in common with those two invitees, but the invitees sure got them noticed in crowded commencement speaker seasons.

Michael, at 3:25 pm EDT on May 16, 2008

Who Was That Masked Man?

Three Things:

First, Judith Shapiro’s thoughtful comments about recipients of honorary degrees included “ ... the recipient should be unequivocally honorable, in accordance with the institution’s mission and values” and “I defined honorableness with reference to the mission and values of the particular institution, something that the institution is presumably clear about.”

I – and this is obviously a personal perspective – do not think university mission statements are invariably specific (they are almost always compromises of compromises based on committee debates and concessions and a subsequent sequence of “administrative” rubber stamps), nor are potential candidates for honorary degrees so unidimensional that it is easy to establish an alignment between their complex lives and achievements and the university’s mission.

At one of the graduation ceremonies I attended last year, four individuals – including a former colleague and friend – received honorary degrees. One who received an honorary degree was also the graduation speaker, and, while I stood and applauded him, many seated around me booed and hissed. The University of Michigan’s mission statement – depending on which one of several you could chose – states ...

“Any discussion of the role of a modern complex university must recognize that such an institution has at least three vital missions. The first of these is to educate students in the light of certain general educational goals. The second is the preservation and refinement of knowledge already acquired, along with the production, dissemination, and utilization of new knowledge. The third role of the modern university is that of helping to define and assist in the solution of the problems of society.” Pretty mundane, huh?

The speaker who was booed by a good many shareholders of the University was former President Bill Clinton. While I thought the alignment of honors for Bill Clinton and the University’s mission was a good one (in truth, that thought never entered my mind), many of my fellow shareholders clearly did not.

Second – and this is also addressed to President Shapiro — as one who frequently writes under the pseudonym Frizbane Manley, I’m asking you to please cut chris b some slack. Publius (a.k.a. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay), Jonathan Swift (a.k.a. Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, M.B. Drapier, etc), Samuel Longhorn Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass, Sieur Louis de Conte, etc.), practically everything from the “pen” of the Almighty (a.k.a. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, etc.), Nicolas Bourbaki (Henri Cartan, Jean Coulomb, Jean Dieudonné, René de Possel, Szolem Mandelbrojt, André Weil, etc.), and my all time favorite Lemony Snicket all thought they had reason to be little impressed with your dictum that “I am a believer in identifying oneself as fully as possible so as to be fully accountable for one’s views.”

I respect your right to believe what you believe. On the other hand, you will be at a complete loss to present evidence that one’s establishing hir identity makes hir any more or less accountable for hir views. I, for one, take great pains to treat Frizbane Manley and what he has to say with the utmost respect. I imagine that is true of chris b too.

Third, I am floored that you are so oblivious to or insensitive to the pressures brought to bear on – not to mention the outright harassment of – faculty who take risks to speak out on issues that are important. Seriously, you should take a two-year leave of absence and spend one semester each at four universities each of which has two directions and “State” in its title (e.g. Southeast New York State University). Oh, and by the way, keep quiet about the fact that you’re President Judith Shapiro of Barnard College. Let them think you’re Judith Shapiro, untenured associate professor of anthropology. I can assure you you will be in for a real education ... not the sort that is obtained at the Bs and C, Brandeis, Columbia, Bryn Mawr, and Barnard. Hell, you could toss a Jackie K. pillbox hat into the air and cover all four of those schools. You need to get out of town for a couple of years.

I suppose I’ll save my next illustration – and I have waaay more than you could possibly imagine – for your response. At that time I’ll explain when one buys more by writing under a pseudonym (90% of the time) and when it is important to use one’s actual name and professional identification (the other 10%). But in your response I’d like to know if you’ve ever said or signed off on a statement that went “ ... while we respect Professor X’s right to say ****, that should not be interpreted as being consistent with the principles of Barnard College.”

Frizbane Manley, at 10:05 pm EDT on May 16, 2008

Pen Names

To Frizbane Manley’s defense of pen names I add this: We don’t know the name of the poet who wrote _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_. Whoever he or she was acted as a spiritual or societal channel. Anonymity allows things to get said that otherwise might not in this political, censorious world in which we strive to hold or seek employment and so on. I’m grateful for the freedom to express myself within this masquerade ball, as it were.

Otherwise, I’d have to keep quiet and deprive readers of the greater joys of agreeing and disagreeing with some of my more forthright, or less artful, statements.

Also, this forum lends itself to the inevitable infelicities that must occur when the “Submit” button prohibits further revision and proofreading that a more formal vetting process might somewhat alleviate; it’s entirely possible for any of us to say something stupid now and then, as chris b. notes. To say I have yet to say anything which could be seen as stupid would probably be a case in point.

This is not necessarily the place where full disclosure should be mandatory. And I respect all those who act as anonymous channels for the history of ideas.

Raymond, at 10:45 am EDT on May 17, 2008

Getting Back on Subject

Granted my response to Judith Shapiro was a bit off the central theme of this article – although it was completely apropos in response to her comments — and granted Washington University — Saint Louis awarding an honorary degree to Phyllis Schlafly isn’t quite in the category of the University of Edinburgh – Scotland (1984), the University of Massachusetts – Amherst (1986) and Michigan State University (1990) awarding honorary degrees to Robert Mugabe, president of Zimbabwe, whose North-Korean trained 5th Brigade apparently murdered upwards of 20,000 Ndebele innocent civilians in the 1980s, but a 3/29/07 “InsideHigherEd” article and the readers’ responses are pertinent to Scott Jaschik’s article above.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/03/29/mugabe

In particular, I hope you will read the posts by RWH and yours truly, Frizbane Manley.

If I’m not mistaken, the University of Edinburgh and U. Mass-Amherst rescinded their honorary degrees, but Michigan State stuck to its principles (I presume) and continue to honor the African leader who likened himself to Adolph Hitler ...

“I am still the Hitler of the time. This Hitler has only one objective, justice for his own people, sovereignty for his people, recognition of the independence of his people, and their right to their resources. If that is Hitler, then let me be a Hitler tenfold.”

As far as I can tell, Phyllis Schlafly has carefully eschewed such nonsense. Her most memorable quotations are ...

“Congress should pass legislation to remove from the federal courts their jurisdiction to hear these outrageous challenges to the Ten Commandments and the Pledge of Allegiance.”

“Feminism is doomed to failure because it is based on an attempt to repeal and restructure human nature.”

“It is long overdue for parents to realize they have the right and duty to protect our children against the intolerant evolutionists.”

“Men should stop treating feminists like ladies, and instead treat them like the men they say they want to be.”

“Putting women in military combat is the cutting edge of the feminist goal to force us into an androgynous society.”

“The United States is a giant island of freedom, achievement, wealth and prosperity in a world hostile to our values.”

“The worst censors are those prohibiting criticism of the theory of evolution in the classroom.”

“There is a strong correlation between belief in evolution and liberal views on government control, pornography, prayer in schools, abortion, gun control, economic freedom, and even animal rights.”

“Women have babies and men provide the support. If you don’t like the way we’re made you’ve got to take it up with God.”

“Many years ago Christian pioneers had to fight savage Indians. Today missionaries of these former cultures are being sent via the public schools to heathenize our children.”

I know my feminist friends would take offence if I said this to them, but I assume Mrs. Schlafly will be energized to hear me say “You go girl!!!”

Frizbane Manley, at 4:40 pm EDT on May 17, 2008

Jefferson and Honorary Degrees

Like so many things, Mr. Jefferson got it right. If one receives a degree from UVA, one earns it. Proud UVA Alum

Brian E. Campbell, at 1:30 pm EDT on May 18, 2008

Scott Jaschik’s left wing bias

“They and many others are furious that the university is honoring a woman who has spent her career crusading against protections for women as well as for promoting the teaching of disproved theories that attack evolutionary science.”

The bias in Scott Jaschik’s words above should firmly establish his credentials as a left wing advocate.

CONFESSION of a CREATIONIST by Sara Yoheved Rigler

I always thought creationists were Bible-belt fundamentalists. Denying evolution would put me on their side, and jeopardize my self-image as an East coast Jewish intellectual...

I was thirteen-years-old when I saw the movie, “Inherit the Wind,” a dramatization of the Scopes Monkey Trial. In 1925, in Dayton, Tennessee, a hapless teacher was arrested and tried for teaching Darwin’s Theory of Evolution in a public school. Rapt by the movie, which was a fictionalized version of the trial, I watched spindly Frederic March portray the old-fashioned, Bible-thumping prosecutor, William Jennings Bryan, while irresistible Spencer Tracy portrayed Clarence Darrow, brilliantly defending the cause of enlightenment, progress, and science against reactionary fundamentalism.

From the moment I emerged from that movie theater and for the next thirty years, I was a staunch proponent of evolution. It was logical and scientific. Moreover, it was an axiom among those with whom I chose to identify: East-coast, Jewish intellectuals. Creationists, on the other hand, were narrow-minded, Bible-belt Christian fundamentalists. In college at Brandeis University, we regarded the Creationists as beneath contempt.

I also believed in God. And I accepted that His job description included creating the world and sustaining it somehow. I entertained some vague idea that God had created the basics, the biological soup or the simplest organisms, and evolution took over from there.

I never read Darwin’s book, “The Origin of Species,” nor any treatise by a neo-Darwinist. I was a liberal arts major. My only university foray into science was the required biology-for-poets course. Robert Shapiro, professor of chemistry at New York University, had not yet written his explosive book, “Origins,” in which he calculated the mathematical probability of human beings evolving on earth to be about the same odds as a gambler, using ordinary dice, rolling 100 trillion consecutive double-sixes (i.e. impossible). Even if the book had been available, I would not have read it. I wasn’t interested in science books. I knew evolution was true, because everyone I respected believed in it.

HIDDEN AGENDAS

Why did the intelligentsia of 19th and 20th century Europe and America jump on Darwin’s bandwagon with such zeal that they accorded this unproven theory the status of law, so that to question evolution became like doubting the law of gravity?Darwin’s theory was a convenient way to dispose of God. Unlike the gods of the East, Judaism conferred on the Western world a God who gives commandments, who tells you what to do, who impinges on personal freedom. Until Darwin, the Western world was stuck with God. After all, who else could have created the world? And if He did you the favor of creating you, the least you could do was obey His Ten Commandments. If human beings were the result of chance mutations and survival of the fittest, nobody owed God anything. Human beings were free to do as they pleased.

The Talmud makes a knowing remark about such hidden agendas. It says that the Children of Israel never pursued idol worship except in order to “permit themselves” promiscuity. After all, in the Torah God issued dozens of commandments restricting certain sexual relationships. The pagan deities’ idols Baal and Ashera, on the other hand, had no such scruples. In fact, some pagan gods rather liked orgies. Following them meant one could do as one pleased.Like virtually everyone in the 20th century West, I had grown up with a firm belief in the objectivity of science. Therefore, I was shocked and disillusioned when I read an account of how Albert Einstein, the greatest of all scientists (we stood up in silence in Hebrew school when we received the news of his death, an honor never accorded to any religious or Zionist figure) resisted all the evidence of an expanding universe.

Einstein, in his brilliance, understood that the Big Bang implied some supernatural force that could break through the Law of Inertia and cause the primordial dot which contained all matter and energy to explode.After examining the data of top astronomers and mathematicians, which all pointed to an expanding universe, Einstein still refused to concede the point, and insisted to a colleague, “I have still not fallen into the hands of priests.” ["God and the Astronomers” by Robert Jastrow.]

Even after Edwin Hubble, using the largest telescope in the world, discovered incontrovertible proof of the expanding universe, Einstein continued teaching the static model of the universe for five more years. Only after acceding to Hubble’s request and traveling to Pasadena to personally examine the evidence, did Einstein reluctantly concede, “New observations by Hubble ... make it appear likely that the general structure of the universe is not static."But to this day, schools and universities continue to teach evolution with a devotion which former societies reserved only for religion. Wishful thinking dies hard.

A PEACH PIT AND AN EGGSHELL

I, too, had a hidden agenda in believing in evolution, although mine was not theological, but sociological. Even years after I had committed myself to observing the commandments of the Torah, I still clung to a belief in evolution. Why? I didn’t want to be one of them. The Creationists, Jerry Falwell and his ilk, made my skin crawl. Denying the Theory of Evolution would have put me on their side of the fence, and jeopardized my image of myself as an enlightened, scientific thinker.Then I read a thin volume which irrevocably changed my perception. Rabbi Avigdor Miller, in his book “The Universe Testifies,” discusses the humble peach pit. Pointing out that the peach pit is so hard that no animal can bite into it and harm the delicate seed within, he informs the reader that the cement-like substance which holds the two halves of the peach pit together cannot be dissolved by anything — except a solvent excreted by micro-organisms in the soil.

In the exact right place where the seed needs to be released, Voila! there’s the chemical solvent needed to release it. Could the micro-organisms in the soil know that the peach tree was “evolving” its cement-like sealant? Yet without the soil solvent, the first generation of peach trees would have been the last. Continuing with his rebuttal of the Theory of Evolution, Rabbi Miller points out that every egg shell must be a precise thickness — strong enough to hold the developing chick or turtle or crocodile within, but thin enough so that the new creature can break its way out at the right moment. Moreover, the egg of each species has to be a different precise thickness, an ostrich egg thicker than that of a wren, etc. Getting the thickness of the eggshell right (over and over again for each species) cannot be a matter of chance, because if the eggshell were not the perfect thickness the very first generation, there could be no second generation. The baby organism would have been trapped inside the too-thick egg, unable to reproduce. Moreover, no fossil has ever been found of an egg with the embryo imprisoned inside, although evolution assumes millions of such false tries. “Thousands of degrees of thickness were possible,” Rabbi Miller writes. “That the shell is not too thick and not too thin is incontrovertibly the work of a Designer.” Bringing dozens of further illustrations of phenomena in nature which simply could not have evolved by chance, Rabbi Miller’s logic devastated my belief in evolution. I was convinced. I discarded my belief in organisms evolving by chance like taking off a pair of sunglasses. Then a funny thing happened. I saw a different world.

If instead of haphazardly evolving, everything was deliberately designed by God, then EVERYTHING WAS A GIFT OF GOD’S LOVE. It was the difference between receiving a box of chocolates because Hersheys is giving out free samples to today’s first hundred customers, and receiving a box of chocolates as a gift from my husband. I had always loved flowers. But now, every time I looked at a rose, I felt God’s love for me. The form, the color, the fragrance — none of it had to be there. God had designed it purposely so that human beings would enjoy it. My walks in the Knesset Rose Garden became a rendezvous with God. When I looked at an orchid, I was no longer blown away just by the beauty of the orchid; I was blown away by the love of a God who would design orchids for me to enjoy. When I went to my Senior Prom, I was delighted with the single orchid corsage my date had sent me. But God is a much more attentive and generous beau. He lavishes on the world tens of thousands of varieties of orchids.

Now I feel sorry for the Evolutionists. They live in a world of accidental beauty. I live in a world of deliberate love.

Ken Noble, owner at KDDK-FM Addis/Baton Rouge, at 9:55 pm EDT on May 25, 2008