We Are Drawn To The Rhythm

There are 2 competing blog posts right now in my head-- one that is full of excitement, happiness, and vibrancy over many of the events of the past two weeks (also alluded to in the previous post), and one is heavier, slightly tragic, and a response to political controversy.

The second one has won out, for right now. I feel like I need to get this off my chest before I can really move forward.

On Tuesday, February 12, 2008, The College of William & Mary President Gene Ray Nichol resigned from his position in response to the Board of Visitors decision to deny the renewal of his contract after its June expiration. Rector of the Board of Visitors Michael K. Powell, in an email to the W&M community, supported the Board's decision by claiming that, "After an exhaustive review, however, the Board believed there were a number of problems that were keeping the College from reaching its full potential and concluded that those issues could not be effectively remedied without a change of leadership." He continued by repudiating the assertion of ideology being the catalyst for Nichol's removal; rather, Powell stated that neither ideology nor one single public controversy motivated the board to forge its decree against Nichol, both administratively and emotionally.

Gene Nichol sent an email to the community (which mind you was received before Powell's response) delineating his reasons for resigning early from the Presidency, rather than carry out his full term. Instead of acting merely as a lame duck (can anyone say President Bush?) over the next few months, Nichol decided to step down from his position, protect his family, and leave with the dignity that he could salvage after the brutal attacks of the past few years.

For those of you who are fairly unaware of what exactly has been going on at W&M over the past 3 years to spawn such a turn of events, here's a quick rundown:

1. Removal of the Wren Cross from the Chapel in the Wren Building
2. Sex Worker's Art Show (Description of Show)
3. NCAA decision regarding Tribe logo

Before I go on, I'm going to post Gene Nichol's email that he sent to the W&M community. This will, hopefully, provide a good context and insight into his perpespective:

---

Dear Members of the William & Mary Community:

I was informed by the Rector on Sunday, after our Charter Day celebrations, that my contract will not be renewed in July. Appropriately, serving the College in the wake of such a decision is beyond my imagining. Accordingly, I have advised the Rector, and announce today, effective immediately, my resignation as president of the College of William & Mary. I return to the faculty of the school of law to resume teaching and writing.

I have made four decisions, or sets of decisions, during my tenure that have stirred ample controversy.

First, as is widely known, I altered the way a Christian cross was displayed in a public facility, on a public university campus, in a chapel used regularly for secular College events -- both voluntary and mandatory -- in order to help Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and other religious minorities feel more meaningfully included as members of our broad community. The decision was likely required by any effective notion of separation of church and state. And it was certainly motivated by the desire to extend the College’s welcome more generously to all. We are charged, as state actors, to respect and accommodate all religions, and to endorse none. The decision did no more.

Second, I have refused, now on two occasions, to ban from the campus a program funded by our student-fee-based, and student-governed, speaker series. To stop the production because I found it offensive, or unappealing, would have violated both the First Amendment and the traditions of openness and inquiry that sustain great universities. It would have been a knowing, intentional denial of the constitutional rights of our students. It is perhaps worth recalling that my very first act as president of the College was to swear on oath not to do so.

Third, in my early months here, recognizing that we likely had fewer poor, or Pell eligible, students than any public university in America, and that our record was getting worse, I introduced an aggressive Gateway scholarship program for Virginians demonstrating the strongest financial need. Under its terms, resident students from families earning $40,000 a year or less have 100% of their need met, without loans. Gateway has increased our Pell eligible students by 20% in the past two years.

Fourth, from the outset of my presidency, I have made it clear that if the College is to reach its aspirations of leadership, it is essential that it become a more diverse, less homogeneous institution. In the past two and half years we have proceeded, with surprising success, to assure that is so. Our last two entering classes have been, by good measure, the most diverse in the College’s history. We have, in the past two and a half years, more than doubled our number of faculty members of color. And we have more effectively integrated the administrative leadership of William & Mary. It is no longer the case, as it was when I arrived, that we could host a leadership retreat inviting the 35 senior administrators of the College and see, around the table, no persons of color.

As the result of these decisions, the last sixteen months have been challenging ones for me and my family. A committed, relentless, frequently untruthful and vicious campaign -- on the internet and in the press -- has been waged against me, my wife and my daughters. It has been joined, occasionally, by members of the Virginia House of Delegates -- including last week’s steps by the Privileges and Elections Committee to effectively threaten Board appointees if I were not fired over decisions concerning the Wren Cross and the Sex Workers’ Art Show. That campaign has now been rendered successful. And those same voices will no doubt claim victory today.

It is fair to say that, over the course of the past year, I have, more than once, considered either resigning my post or abandoning the positions I have taken on these matters -- which I believe crucial to the College’s future. But as I did so, I thought of other persons as well.

I thought of those students, staff, faculty, and alumni, not of the religious majority, who have told me of the power of even small steps, like the decision over display of the Wren Cross, to recognize that they, too, are full members of this inspiring community.

I have thought of those students, faculty, and staff who, in the past three years, have joined us with explicit hopes and assurances that the College could become more effectively opened to those of different races, backgrounds, and economic circumstances -- and I have thought of my own unwillingness to voluntarily abandon their efforts, and their prospects, in mid-stream.

I have thought of faculty and staff members here who have, for decades, believed that the College has, unlike many of its competitors, failed to place the challenge of becoming an effectively diverse institution center stage -- and who, as a result, have been strongly encouraged by the progress of the last two years.

I have thought of the students who define and personify the College’s belief in community, in service, in openness, in idealism -- those who make William & Mary a unique repository of the American promise. And I have believed it unworthy, regardless of burden, to break our bonds of partnership.

And I have thought, perhaps most acutely, of my wife and three remarkable daughters. I’ve believed it vital to understand, with them, that though defeat may at times come, it is crucial not to surrender to the loud and the vitriolic and the angry -- just because they are loud and vitriolic and angry. Recalling the old Methodist hymn that commands us “not to be afraid to defend the weak because of the anger of the strong,” nor “afraid to defend the poor because of the anger of the rich.” So I have sought not to yield. The Board’s decision, of course, changes that.

To my faculty colleagues, who have here created a distinctive culture of engaged, student-centered teaching and research, I will remember your strong and steadfast support until the end of my days.

To those staff members and alumni of this accomplished and heartening community, who have struggled to make the William & Mary of the future worthy of its distinctive past, I regret that I will no longer be part of that uplifting cause. But I have little doubt where the course of history lies.

And, finally, to the life-changing and soul-inspiring students of the College, the largest surprise of my professional life, those who have created in me a surpassing faith not only in an institution, but in a generation, I have not words to touch my affections. My belief in your promise has been the central and defining focus of my presidency. The too-quick ending of our work together is among the most profound and wrenching disappointments in my life. Your support, particularly of the past few weeks and days, will remain the strongest balm I’ve known. I am confident of the triumphs and contributions the future holds for women and men of such power and commitment.

I add only that, on Sunday, the Board of Visitors offered both my wife and me substantial economic incentives if we would agree “not to characterize [the non-renewal decision] as based on ideological grounds” or make any other statement about my departure without their approval. Some members may have intended this as a gesture of generosity to ease my transition. But the stipulation of censorship made it seem like something else entirely. We, of course, rejected the offer. It would have required that I make statements I believe to be untrue and that I believe most would find non-credible. I’ve said before that the values of the College are not for sale. Neither are ours.

Mine, to be sure, has not been a perfect presidency. I have sometimes moved too swiftly, and perhaps paid insufficient attention to the processes and practices of a strong and complex university. A wiser leader would likely have done otherwise. But I have believed, and attempted to explain, from even before my arrival on the campus, that an emboldened future for the College of William & Mary requires wider horizons, more fully opened doors, a broader membership, and a more engaging clash of perspectives than the sometimes narrowed gauges of the past have allowed. I step down today believing it still.

I have also hoped that this noble College might one day claim not only Thomas Jefferson’s pedigree, but his political philosophy as well. It was Jefferson who argued for a “wall of separation between church and state” -- putting all religious sects “on an equal footing.” He expressly rejected the claim that speech should be suppressed because “it might influence others to do evil,” insisting instead that “we have nothing to fear from the demoralizing reasonings of some if others are left free to demonstrate their errors.” And he averred powerfully that “worth and genius” should “be sought from every condition” of society.

The College of William & Mary is a singular place of invention, rigor, commitment, character, and heart. I have been proud that even in a short term we have engaged a marvelous new Chancellor, successfully concluded a hugely-promising capital campaign, secured surprising support for a cutting-edge school of education and other essential physical facilities, seen the most vibrant applicant pools in our history, fostered path-breaking achievements in undergraduate research, more potently internationalized our programs and opportunities, led the nation in an explosion of civic engagement, invigorated the fruitful marriage of athletics and academics, lifted the salaries of our lowest-paid employees, and even hosted a queen. None of this compares, though, to the magic and the inspiration of the people -- young and older -- who Glenn and I have come to know here. You will remain always and forever at the center of our hearts.

Go Tribe. And hark upon the gale.

Gene Nichol
---

President Nichol's resignation has caused uproar, frustration, depression, anger, bitterness, rejoice, bliss, ecstasy, resentment, and happiness throughout the campus, depending on the side of the issue upon which one falls. There have been student and faculty-led strikes, peaceful talks, candle-light vigils, speeches upon speeches, letter-writing, musical performances, and open discussion, all of which lead to a greater depth of knowledge about the subject, and also breed open-minded thought and empathy. However, there have also been plenty of negative interactions rampant throughout campus. I think this is the closest I've seen this campus act as if it were still in the 1960s/70s protest paradigm. One of my professors is a veteran of the 1968 Columbia University student strike, and he said that this is the closest we've ever gotten as a campus to that militant yet purposeful radicalism.

I've tried really hard to not inject my own personal and political beliefs about the events into this post, in hopes to elucidate the implicit problems of the situation and its ramifications. But I can't help but profess how deeply troubling, depressing, and affecting Nichol's resignation has been for me. I was talking to my parents about the whole thing, and they told me that both of them had had a conversation when I was deciding upon college during my senior year of high school that there would come a time where I would have to face the reality of Virginia politics (since W&M is a state school), and that I would be forced to come face-to-face with conservative figureheads, in one way or another. They knew if I chose to go to Middlebury in VT, or Amherst in MA or UPenn in Philadelphia that I most likely would avoid the Conservative regime in its most distilled form, and that I could slide through 4 years, maintaining a belief of personal political involvement to the point of a shared elitism, simply because I would be in an environment that fostered, and quite frankly, perpetuated my political stance.

What transpired on campus over the past week is so telling of the narrow-minded, implicitly bigoted, emotionally hollow Conservative and Christian ideologies that have swept the nation over the past 8 years in the wake of Bush's entrance into office. The rise of radical and fundamentalist groups in areas of the South and Midwest point to the rise of what is, in my mind, a new shade of de-militarized neo-Fascism, in that there is such a authoritarian religious ideology, which is in turn channeled into a political mass movement that negates women's rights, gay rights, gender equality, liberalism, social harmony and open-minded discussion. Instead, they've replaced dialogue with proselytizing, with a preacher figure wielding a seemingly boundless autocratic power. It's hegemony in new form-- they've appropriated the Bible to provide a code of ethics, yet they've completely missed the point that Jesus is trying to make in his parables-- "BE A GOOD, KIND PERSON. Don't fuck shit up and expect others to clean it up-- be the best you can be and treat others with respect." I went to church every single Sunday of my childhood, and I was head Sacristant, Choir member, and church-goer for all four years of high school, and not once in my whole Christian career did I encounter these supposed "values" espoused by radical Christian groups. I was always taught that Christian values were simply to maximize one's inner potential and to be as kind to others as possible. Never once was I made victim to the bigoted and slanderous diatribes of the fundamentalists.

One may wonder why I'm choosing to target the rise of Christian nationalism in discussing the events that transpired in relation to Gene Nichol-- it's because I see their influence as the defining reason why this country has lost its moral equilibrium. The fact that my father claims that to be a Republican now is not at all close to be a Republican twenty years ago says something-- the fact that he voted Democrat in the last election because he knew that the Republican party has divided down the lines of fiscal/social conservatives and radical Christian figureheads is telling. No longer can one call themselves a moderate Conservative-- there is a giant schism between the neo-Conservative and the traditionalist. The spread of Christian nationalism has signaled to me a poisoning of our own nationalism, of our own national identity. No longer can a liberal be called patriotic, according to Christian nationalists, because they question the war in Iraq. Ani DiFranco, in her song Alla This, claims, "I cannot support the troops, because every last one of them's being duped." The idea that one saying they can't support the troops is an attack on America and a signal of Communist rhetorical movement is just crazy-- because one is not able to align themselves with a fucking CRAZY and unbelievably idiotic war does not mean that they're not patriotic.

The spread of this hateful religious and political ideology is simply a signal to the major problem with American politics that is typified in Gene Nichol's situation. Because he removed a cross from a space in which it had a very short historical significance, or because he allowed students to have their First Amendment rights in holding a show that gave voices to workers of the sex trade, he all of a sudden became the next vendetta of the Fundamentalists. He became a target-- somewhere to pump their energy into getting him removed. Because, God forbid, in an institution of higher learning we have diversity of THOUGHT. Because, oh no, we couldn't possibly allow anything to contradict the reactionary taint of the Commonwealth.

My friend Sam has in his profile a fantastic quote by William Allen White: "If our colleges and universities do not breed men who riot, who rebel, who attack life with all the youthful vision and vigor, then there is something wrong with our colleges. The more riots that come out of our college campuses, the better the world for tomorrow." I realize this perhaps typifies my own liberal radicalism, and I also realize that my own writing in this post has been somewhat devoid of my own personal emotional voice, but I'm just so frustrated, angry, and bitter about the situation that I am hiding behind words. I'm hiding because I'm trying to regain a sense of meaning and hope. I'm trying to keep my head above water, without losing too much of myself in the process. I want to still believe. I need to still believe.

I'm aware of the possibility that each subsequent day will incrementally diminish the fire inside of me about this issue. But, in the face of apathy, I need to remember. I need to fight. I can no longer sit on the sidelines and watch this country be divided by a poisonous collective in the guise of Christian warriors. I will stand up for the Constitution, open-minded dialogue, and inalienable human rights.

Fuck you, Board of Visitors. Fuck you, Commonwealth of Virginia. Fuck you, Fred Phelps.

Now let's talk.