Fides Quaerens Intellectum

Perhaps the most powerful objection to a thoroughgoing faith/learning academic environment (i.e., in the classroom itself) and its supporting arguments is an argument from academic freedom. More than a few well-meaning professors put it this way: “Faith/learning integration in our classrooms ought not be imposed on us from the powers that be, because while intellectual growth, faith, virtue and citizenship are concepts compatible with the long-standing doctrine of academic freedom within the academy, ‘faith’ of the Christian variety tends to weaken academic freedom by imposing certain restrictions and codes of belief and conduct upon faculty.”[1]

This objection is not a trivial one. The concerns it presupposes are underscored, for example, in the 1990 papal document Ex Corde Ecclesia, which calls upon Catholic theologians at Catholic universities to procure an ecclesiastical license from the local bishop as a precondition for teaching. It further asserts that presidents of Catholic universities “should take an oath of fidelity to the Catholic Church and that teachers should be faithful to and respect Catholic doctrine and morals in their research and teaching.”[2] Not surprising, then, is the fact that this call to action has been perceived by many as heavy-handed. If religion is indeed a conversation-stopper as Richard Rorty has forcefully argued,[3] then perhaps this criticism is justified, based on the potential Ex Corde has to discourage inquiry into various academic disciplines as a result of blunting the effects of academic freedom as that concept has been understood by American higher educators for most of the twentieth century.[4] It is this understanding of how academic freedom is to be construed, however, that is precisely the point at issue.

Academic freedom was first proclaimed as an ideal essential to the definition of a university by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), which was organized in 1915,[5] and whose 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure entitles scholars to “full freedom in research and in the publication of the results,” as well as to “freedom in the classroom in discussing [the] subject….”[6] George Marsden briefly chronicles the development and the nationwide acceptance of the AAUP’s understanding of the concept:

At first some academic administrators resisted aspects of the due process in hiring and firing that the AAUP insisted their ideal implied; but within the next two decades academic freedom, more or less as the AAUP had defined it, was widely accepted. By 1940 when an important restatement of the AAUP principles was widely adopted, the ideal had become a standard assumption in American academic thought. Certainly by the end of the era of McCarthyite repression of the early 1950s academic freedom had attained sacred status among the professoriate and was spoken of as though it were an ancient absolute, associated with universities since time immemorial.[7]

The AAUP has regularly conducted investigations into alleged violations of its principles, and, in cases where there is sufficient evidence, censures the guilty institutions. In some cases, despite its provision in the 1940 Statement that it is permissible to limit academic freedom based on religious considerations, the organization has censured religious institutions that have terminated tenured faculty or denied tenure to faculty who have not held to clearly articulated institutional religious requirements.[8] Given this understanding of academic freedom and the practice that flows from it, what grounds does any Christian liberal arts college or university have for encouraging, and in some cases, requiring faith/learning integration of the sort discussed above to define the kind of education it delivers?

In response, academic freedom, like most freedoms, is qualified. As Nicholas Wolterstorff points out, “In practice, the right to academic freedom is no more absolute than the civil liberty of free speech.”[9] If he is correct, then the most interesting (and certainly the most pressing) question is not whether it is acceptable for religious colleges to place limits on academic freedom. As he says, “All educational institutions attach qualifications to academic freedom; none allows professors to teach whatever they wish.” Rather, the most interesting question (with respect to religious colleges) is “Are religious qualifications to academic freedom inherently inappropriate?”[10] My answer to this question is “absolutely not.” In support of this reply is Wolterstorff’s contention that, legally speaking, there is nothing a professor is free to teach in a public university that she is not free to teach at a private university. The converse, however, is not true: there is much that an academic can teach in a private university that she is not free to teach in a public university, such as religiously-grounded arguments.[11] In other words, if the state’s version of academic freedom which is qualified by government-imposed constraints on religious expression in state university classrooms does not apply to religious colleges and universities, then it is hard to see any meaningful sense in which it is inherently inappropriate for the latter to attach religious qualifications to academic freedom.

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[1] Note that I am anticipating what I take to be the objection that has the best chance of undermining the argument for a rigorous faith-learning academic environment at a Christian liberal arts institution where faculty responsibilities (as stated by the institution for purposes of hiring as well as evaluating faculty for tenure and promotion) include assisting students in making the intellectual connections between historic orthodox Christianity and any given academic discipline.

[2] F. King Alexander and Klinton W. Alexander (2000). “The Reassertion of Church Doctrine in American Higher Education: The Legal and Fiscal Implications of the Ex Corde Ecclesiae for Catholic Colleges and Universities in the United States.” Journal of Law & Education 29(2): 150.

[3] Richard Rorty, “Religion as Conversation-Stopper.” Common Knowledge 3 (1): 1-6. Rorty’s thesis is that religion ought to be construed as a private affair since, “in political discussion with those outside the relevant community, it is a conversation-stopper” (3).

[4] “Steps for Obtaining Ex Corde Mandate Are Under Consideration.” Academe (January/February 2001): 5.

[5] George Marsden, The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994): 296.

[6] “1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure,” in William W. Van Alstyne, ed. Freedom and Tenure in the Academy (Durham & London: Duke University Press, 1993): 407.

[7] Marsden, Soul; 296.

[8] The “1940 Statement” reads “Limitations of academic freedom because of religious or other aims of the institution should be clearly stated in writing at the time of the appointment” (407). For an excellent example of how the AAUP seems to disregard this provision, see a recent report entitled “Academic Freedom and Tenure: Brigham Young University.” Academe (September-October, 1997): 52-68. Also see the response from the Brigham Young administration in the same issue, pp. 69-71.

[9] Nicholas Wolterstorff, “Ivory Tower Or Holy Mountain? Faith and Academic Freedom.” Academe (January-February 2001): 18.

[10] Ibid., 21.

[11] Ibid., 20.