By Selwyn Duke
When people who have their fingers on the pulse of our culture think of modern universities and colleges, conjured up no doubt are images of institutions where political correctness reigns . . . and also rains on religion and traditional values. They are places where religion is only mentioned for the purposes of criticizing it and where the Lord's name is mentioned -- but that's usually when it is taken in vain. It wasn't always this way though. An oft-forgotten fact of history is that the first 106 of 108 American universities and colleges were not only friendly toward religion, but were actually founded as avowedly Christian institutions. For example, the first three such institutions, Harvard [founded 1636], William and Mary [1691] and Yale [1701] were founded for the expressed purpose of preparing young men for the ministry. Of course, these institutions' mission statements are not what they once were -- they no longer claim to be Christian in nature. In fact, while American higher education once was an exclusively Christian domain, it now has come full circle and become a bastion of every manner and form of anti-Christian philosophy. What's more, even most institutions that still lay claim to being Christian are so in name only -- their Christian names being nothing more than quaint relics of the past.
This state of affairs tends to be seen by many these days as a sign of progress. We live in a pluralistic society, people will say -- is it fair to have schools that are governed by religions that not everyone adheres to? Why, it can be offensive, they will opine -- and no one has a right to impose values on anyone else. For this reason people have come to believe that it is better to purge such places of their religious character and adopt a secular orientation. Yes, secularism is now the default mode, and it is seen by most as being a fair compromise.
But there is a problem with this rationale: you see, it is not really a compromise. What is lost in this debate is the fact that an institution cannot be governed by nothing at all. For, every institution has to be governed by a set of rules, adopt certain policies and institute certain programs. And, it doesn't matter of what stripe these are, the fact is that they will never accord completely with virtually anyone's world view. Sure, you could say that a Jewish person might not like being a member of an institution that was Christian in character; he might not want to hear about Jesus being the second person of the Trinity. And an atheist might not like being part of an institution that had any kind of a religious nature whatsoever; merely hearing the word "God" uttered might bother him -- no doubt about it. In fact, if they are extremely prideful these things might even offend them -- sure enough. But it is also true that I wouldn't like to have to be part of an institution that was politically correct in nature, and that taught feminist, environmentalist and multiculturalist ideology. Those things can offend people too. The fact is that most everyone is offended by something and everything offends someone.
What it boils down to is that there is no such thing as value-neutral education. If you tell a child it is wrong to be prejudiced, dishonest, to pollute, or that it is right to be fair-minded, sincere and to conserve you have expressed values. Anytime you say or imply that anything is right or wrong, better or worse, you have expressed, either explicitly or implicitly, a value. So, it's not a matter of whether or not schools will espouse values, it's just a question of WHAT values they are going to espouse. "But wait," you might say "some values are almost universal -- isn't part of the point of having secular education that it will be something that's palatable to everyone? I mean, look, don't we all agree that you should be fair-minded, sincere and shouldn't pollute?" Yes, virtually all of us do agree on those things. But it is also true that a Jewish person would agree with the Christian tenet that there is only one God, and that an atheist might agree with the Commandments "Thou shalt do no murder" and "Thou shalt not steal." But, the fact remains that just like a Christian education would involve elements that such people might take exception to, so too will a secular education involve elements to which many will object. You can always cherry-pick values from most any single philosophy, ideology or religion and find some that most everyone will agree with, but as I said earlier, you will find precious few people who agree with its values in their totality. And attempting to confine ourselves to the few values that 99% of the population agrees on when devising curricula and adopting educational policies is problematic. For, while you can certainly divorce an institution from stated policies that express contentious values, you cannot divorce those within the institution from their biases. Official policies don't change the fact that we bring our values into what we do in the same way that we bring our personalities, and those values will color and shape our behavior to some extent. And, nothing changes the fact that despite all the posturing about the injustice and perils of imposing values on others, left-wing hegemony has become the status quo on university campuses.
And that really is the main point. Complaints about "the imposition of values" are just a ploy used by liberals when they hear values that clash with their sensibilities -- namely, Christian/traditional values. Then, as this ploy takes effect and slowly denudes academia's landscape of these targeted values, they plant the seeds of their values in their place and act as if their values aren't really values. They would have us believe that values expressed as part of what we call a religious world view are in fact morality and should therefore not be allowed through the schoolhouse doors, but those expressed as part of a secular world view are somehow something else and therefore deserve a place at the cafeteria table. Unfortunately, those of us who are Christian or at least tradition-oriented have fallen for this con hook, line and sinker. Consequently, we have been made to feel guilty and for fear of offending others have stood by sheepishly and allowed our values to be removed even from institutions that were supposed to be our own, while remaining blissfully unaware of who the real offense-givers are. Then we ask "Is it fair for us to "impose" our values?" What is truly not fair is a double-standard that ensures that only one side's voice will be heard. What is not fair is a double-standard that eliminates virtually all genuinely Christian institutions and imposes a left-wing ideological straightjacket on virtually all of academia. What is not fair is to preach diversity but then conspire to squelch the diversity of ideas in education at every turn. And what is not fair, nay, what is wicked, is to banish God from formerly hallowed halls and roll out a red carpet for the Devil.
