To the Editor:
I would like to congratulate all the students, faculty and concerned community members who came to the Oak Room last Thursday to protest President von Arx’s cancellation of the Alliance sponsored forum on Marriage Equality. I was especially impressed by the sincerity and eloquence of the many students who spoke. It was a night when I was very proud to be a Fairfield faculty member.
Unfortunately, I don’t believe that the evening’s events answered the academic freedom questions raised by the president’s action. These questions can’t be seriously addressed until we, as a community, make President von Arx open the discussion to areas well beyond his press release explanation of his action. The Catholic Church has taken a clear stand against same-sex marriage and same-sex civil unions. Connecticut bishops wrote letters that were read in nearly every parish supporting a petition drive to convince Connecticut legislators not to legalize same-sex civil unions.
When publicity for the Marriage Equality Forum went out, President von Arx acknowledged receiving letters and phone calls from Catholics who were irate over the fact that Fairfield University would host a forum whose speakers would take a position that diverged so dramatically from the Church’s clear position. He responded to those complaining by personally sending them a simple message: when the forum had been brought to his attention, he canceled it. Might the recipients of such succinct messages believe that the “content” of their complaint was responsible for the president’s action?
Apparently they shouldn’t have jumped to that conclusion. Nowhere in the president’s press release does he acknowledge that the forum’s “content” had any role to play in his decision to cancel it. In fact, he explicitly has stated to one of Alliance’s faculty advisors that such Catholic complaints had no influence on his decision.
If this is true, of course, there is no great need to discuss right now what policies might be needed to better protect the right of student organizations and the right of other university constituents for that matter, to invite to campus speakers who espouse positions contrary to those of the Catholic Church. All that needs to be discussed is the wisdom of the president’s new policy: granting himself the right to unilaterally cancel events when he thinks that they have been “co-opted by an outside organization with a clear agenda of advocacy and with the goal of influencing legislation.” I, for one. wouldn’t want to waste too much time discussing this “policy.” It is simply a bad one. For example, I believe that Right-to-Life Fairfield students ought to be able to ask Human Life International to provide them with a speaker who advocates that more restrictions be placed on a Connecticut women’s access to abortion, even if Connecticut legislators then were considering a parental notification bill and even if they were personally invited to the forum. I don’t think the president should require Right-to-Life Fairfield students to add an abortion rights speaker to their forum if they don’t wish to. I also don’t think that we have any reason to fear that the president might implement his new policy in this case.
The president might wish to do something to assure the skeptical that all members of the Fairfield community retain the right to invite to this campus speakers who espouse positions contrary to those of the Catholic Church. I have a suggestion. Let Alliance reproduce the canceled Educational Forum as soon as Governor Rell signs the same-sex civil union legislation. There will be no “pending legislation,” and the president will have time to poll Alliance members to see if they support Love Makes a Family’s agenda. I don’t think that it is a secret that Fairfield University’s gay, lesbian and bisexual community favors same-sex couples having the legal right to marry and/or enter into civil unions, but if finding this out will allay the president’s fear of Alliance being co-opted by an outside organization, he should poll them.
Sincerely,
Dennis Hodgson
Professor of Sociology and Anthropology
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