Vanderbilt's Irony

Spring break helped me put off some blogging for a couple weeks, and I am glad to be back.  

I came across an interesting article this afternoon that deals with the controversy at Vanderbilt concerning religious organizations and its leadership positions.    Religious groups at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee are now being banned from making leadership decisions based on religion.

The outer bounds of “the freedom of expressive association” are disputed, but this much is clear: If a private group is actually engaged in expression and wishes to maintain its distinctive expressive identity, it cannot be forced by government to include in its group persons or messages antithetical to its message.
That is precisely what Vanderbilt has done—for better or for worse. Vanderbilt is a private university engaged in forming its own distinctive expressive identity. As such, it is free to choose from any of a number of possible views. It could choose to embrace specific religious principles and exclude the expression of other ones. (Many religious colleges do this, to different degrees.) It could embrace religious freedom, diversity, and tolerance for different student groups. (Many private colleges and universities, of all different kinds, do this.) Or it could choose to exclude or suppress the expression of religious views of which it disapproves. Vanderbilt has chosen this last course. It has chosen to exclude groups expressing messages with which it disagrees, for its own secular reasons.

What I found interesting is the fact that Vanderbilt is legally allowed to disallow religious organizations from discriminating against individuals who do not hold their specific set of beliefs.  However, their agenda is slightly ironic.

The reason why Vanderbilt may discriminate against religion is precisely the same principle of freedom that Vanderbilt denies to religious groups on its campus—the freedom to form its own expressive identity. Vanderbilt purports to be liberal and tolerant of different views. But its university officials do not appear to understand what this means. They think the university is being open-minded by requiring student groups, including religious groups, to conform to university officials’ view of orthodoxy. This is not so much hypocritical or cynical (though it may be that as well) as simply embarrassingly ignorant. Vanderbilt does not appear even to recognize that its actions are intolerant. It thinks it is protecting its community from improper influences.

One can argue, "What if an organization requires someone who wishes to run for a leadership position to do something illegal or harmful?" I believe ethical considerations can be measured to a certain extent in situations similar to this one, and I personally find it wrong for Vanderbilt leaders to enforce their views on an organization with positive requirements.  In the words of J.P. Freire, "The nondiscrimination policy is a direct contradiction to the school's own words when it insists that students 'are entitled to exercise the rights of citizens.'"

Check out the article here