Neither academic freedom nor freedom of artistic expression can be parsed. Universities and nations either offer them to the members of their communities, or they can choose another path. You cannot be 50 percent free to say, write, draw or perform what you want. To be half-free is to not be free at all.
But when the content gets tricky — especially when it attacks religion — those in charge try to have their cake and eat it too.
Take the recent flap at the University of Notre Dame, brought to a head when two old artistic issues cropped up. A group of students wanted to produce “The Vagina Monologues,” Eve Ensler’s well-known performance piece exploring the roots of female inhibition (both religious and otherwise) and promoting sexual empowerment. And plans were made on campus for a Queer Film Festival — a celebration of movies with gay themes.
In a recent public address (reported on the Tribune’s front page), university President Rev. John Jenkins argued that “in some situations, given the distinctive character and aspirations of Notre Dame, it may be necessary to establish certain boundaries, while defending the appropriate exercise of academic freedom.”
Jenkins called academic freedom “sacred.” But he also said that where freedom came into contact with Catholic values, the latter should trump the former. At least when it comes to public events promoted by the university.
But when it comes to freedom of speech or creativity, freedom should know no such boundaries. And it should be subject to no trump card.
Can’t have it both ways
In other words, Jenkins’ statement contradicts itself. If you believe freedom to be “sacred,” you must defend it at all costs. And there can be no exceptions for the times when it becomes uncomfortable or challenging to a powerful hierarchy or constituency.
In this regard, Notre Dame might take a lesson from Northwestern University, which last week went to the mat in defense of the right of a faculty member, Arthur Butz, to deny the Holocaust — on his own time — and still hold an academic position at the university in another field of study. Because Butz was also offering solace and credence to the president of Iran on that hate-mongering topic, it’s hard to imagine a more odious set of views. Still, his right to say what he wants to say was defended, even while his colleagues expressed personal and institutional outrage. That’s the way it should be.
There is nothing wrong with a university preferring other values to academic freedom — you could make a fine case that young people are better off in the nurturing educational environment afforded by Notre Dame that in some libertarian jungle. Jenkins clearly is a decent, thoughtful man — he dampened, rather than banned, the two offending events, insisting that “The Vagina Monologues” take place only in a classroom without university-sanctioned fundraising, and pressuring the film festival to change its name (which it did). And he said he plans to seek faculty input on the matter.
His faculty should tell him he cannot have it both ways. Logic demands that he choose.
For you cannot ban — or even dampen — that pair of artistic events based on any established criteria of academic freedom that any practicing academic would recognize. And that’s why Jenkins’ position is inherently untenable.
When it comes to some controversial art — such as the currently infamous Danish cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad in satirical fashion — you can make a strong case that artistic expression is gratuitously inflammatory and thus not worthy of exposure. A newspaper or magazine is under no obligation to publish that cartoon if it does not meet its editorial standards — and, in recent days, many editors of American publications have said as much. Rightly. Although one wishes that refusal to publish had been accompanied by a clear statement that the cartoonist had a right to draw that cartoon nonetheless. A right made no less absolute by the pain of its defense.
No leg to stand on
But Jenkins cannot stand behind that defense because the controversial events at Notre Dame have proved academic worth.
“The Vagina Monologues” is ideologically controversial, for sure, but its academic soundness as a significant contemporary play is incontrovertible. It’s a staple on campuses all over the nation, and has been for several years. Similarly, the appropriated word “queer” may be offensive to some, but it’s also a well-established academic term when it comes to gay and lesbian film, literature and culture.
Many academic tomes — and theses and doctoral dissertations — contain the offending word in their titles. Smith College offers an academic concentration in Queer Studies. So do many others.
Jenkins can stand in the way of these events and be a reasonable man. He may even be fulfilling a deep and profound moral duty to do so. Be he cannot logically do so if he truly believes “academic freedom” to be sacred. To undermine these events is — by definition — to believe that something else is more sacred.
NBC’s recently canceled “The Book of Daniel” may have been a lousy TV show and its depictions of religious persons merely cliches. In that case, those who sought to censor the show can take solace in the free market doing a much better job. Similarly, rapper Kanye West hardly enhanced his reputation by donning an appropriated crown of thorns for a recent cover of Rolling Stone.
Still, there’s a new chill in the air that flows well beyond the city limits of South Bend, Ind. When it comes to the artistic critique of religious values — whether by the cartoonist’s brush, the camera’s lens, or the playwright’s monologue — intolerance is on a global march.
Surely the president of a great university can understand that playwrights, filmmakers and thinkers must question the socio-political assumptions of religious hierarchies to do their job, and they must do so in a public forum. Neither Christians, Jews nor Muslims can get a blanket exemption. They don’t need it.
Faith is stronger than that. And freedom will only enhance it.
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cjones5@tribune.com
