Fanaticism, a great philosopher once said, can be described as doubling one’s exertions on behalf of an end that has been forgotten, not so bad a description of what has been going on of late at the College of William & Mary.
In that venerable, Virginia institution — the second oldest college in America — the recently resigned president, Gene Nichol, considered himself to be upholding the highest values when he removed a cross from where it had resided for decades in a historic chapel.
The cross, Nichol said, was off-putting to non-Christian visitors during secular events or when they went there for solace. It wasn’t “welcoming to all.” And, oh yes, there’s the separation of church and state to keep in mind. William & Mary, as a state institution, must “accommodate all religions, and endorse none,” Nichol has said.
Now, it may well be true that some Muslim, Jewish, atheist or other visitors have been offended by the cross, for offensiveness is a subjective thing, purely in the eye of the beholder. Anything from apple pie to three-piece suits may offend some people.
The issue is something else — whether the offended party can offer up some convincing rationale why anyone of any background actually should be taken aback by the symbol of a religion profoundly associated with the school from its earliest days, and it’s hard to know what it would be.
That the simple act of seeing a symbol of a faith not one’s own is an exclusionary warning not to tread here? That it is deeply amiss to have a religious reference in a setting often used for worship? That the school should abandon its traditions out of fear someone may not understand that respect for them implies nothing scornful of other traditions?
The real explanation for some taking offense at a cross could very well be prejudice, a conviction that Christianity is contaminating. If it’s a glad tolerance of others’ beliefs that Nichol wanted to foster, he should have encouraged those complaining to be more open-minded.
The true offense finally was to those alumni and students who signed petitions asking that the cross be put back. Nichol — who did return it in a transparent case, saying it could be taken out on request — had cared insufficiently about their sensibilities.
As for the idea that the cross was an affront to constitutional precept, Nichol as a student of law ought to know better. The First Amendment prohibition is against the establishment of a state religion, and that cross established no religion.
It imposed nothing on anyone. It extended no substantive accommodation to Christian students that other students lack, and penalized no one who is something other than Christian. Ignoring it was as easy as looking in another direction.
In part for its removal, but for reasons of other ideologically informed deeds as well, Nichol ended up having his contract terminated and then stepping down on his own before the designated date. I happen to know him, and I know he is the opposite of a bad man; I am convinced he is, in fact, a very good man.
But I do believe that like so many others in our times, he has forgotten a true aim of the principles he cited — to assure freedom of conscience, not to assure freedom from even the slightest encounter with a deeply significant heritage of our civilization. A consequence of this forgetfulness was irrational excess. A consequence was a fanatical act of political correctness.
Examiner Columnist Jay Ambrose is a former Washington opinion writer and editor of two dailies. He may be reached at [email protected]
