The National Association of Scholars recently issued a very interesting report regarding the state of history programs in the State of Texas, but the report has ominous implications for history programs nationwide.  Because of a 1971 Texas law requiring that students at public institutions complete at least two courses in American history, NAS decided to examine history programs there to see whether they were meeting this requirement.  What they found was disturbing.

The NAS researchers discovered that the history programs at the University of Texas, Austin and Texas A&M University (the two representative campuses used in the study) overemphasized politically correct topics such as race, class, and gender to the detriment of other important aspects of history, such as America’s diplomatic, scientific, military, philosophical, and religious history.   These important topics received little attention as more than half of the history faculty members at these institutions focused on the race, class, and gender issues.

The NAS study also found that rather than assigning important foundational and primary source documents for students to read as part of the history curriculum, 78% of UT faculty and 50% of A&M faculty instead assigned readings focused on race, class, and gender.   NAS states that Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America and the Gettysburg Address, for instance, were rarely assigned, and numerous political documents, such as the Mayflower Compact and Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, were not assigned in any American history courses.  Not coincidentally, these excluded documents tend to emphasize America’s religious roots.   Of the  100 “milestone documents” of US history published by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), which includes texts such as the Gettysburg Address and the Declaration of Independence, the report states that only 23 were assigned, and these were only assigned by five faculty members (out of the 46 total).  The report concludes, “In other words, 89 percent of faculty members teaching lower division U.S. history courses assigned none of the 100 key documents, and 77% of the documents went totally unassigned.”

But the history curriculum is really no surprise, given that the NAS study also found that 78% of UT faculty and 64% of A&M faculty had research interests in race, class, and gender issues, showing little academic diversity among faculty members.  For institutions that routinely emphasize “diversity,” diversity of thought apparently is not a concern.

Why should we care about these findings?  First, they are especially disturbing because they only promise to get worse.   Almost certainly as a result of the increasing imbalance of the history curriculum, the views of history graduates in academia are becoming even more polarized.  As KC Johnson pointed out on Minding the Campus,

The developing pedagogical groupthink is likely to become more, not less, intense as time passes and older faculty members retire. According to the report, “83 percent of UT faculty members teaching these courses who received their Ph.D.s in the 90s or later had RCG research interests, while only 67 percent of UT faculty members who received their Ph.D.s in the 70s or 80s had RCG research interests. 90 percent of A&M faculty members teaching these courses who received their Ph.D.s in the 90s or later had RCG research interests, while only 36 percent of A&M faculty members who received their Ph.D.s in the 70s or 80s had RCG research interests.”

He also points out that the problem is likely far worse nationwide, given that if any institutions should have more of a balanced view of American history, it should be these Texas institutions:

Texas A&M has a significant military contingent in the student body and alumni base. The University of Texas is home to the Lyndon Johnson School of Public Affairs. Its campus hosts the LBJ Presidential Library. The Texas State Capitol is down the street from campus. The intellectual atmosphere on both campuses, then, is likelier to be far friendlier to “traditional” types of U.S. history than is the case at most universities.

This, in many ways, is the most depressing aspect of the NAS report. If UT and Texas A&M represent best-case scenarios among major universities in how U.S. history is taught, how bad is the typical campus likely to be?

Finally, it is extremely alarming that some of America’s most respected public institutions of higher education are graduating students who are essentially illiterate in important aspects of America’s history and heritage, which can only have negative impacts on how these graduates, our next generation, view our country, as well as the values they hold.

A University of North Carolina–Wilmington professor’s speeches and columns are fully protected by the First Amendment, according to a published decision handed down Wednesday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. Alliance Defense Fund attorneys contended that criminology professor Mike Adams was denied a promotion unconstitutionally because university officials were hostile to the religious and political views he espoused in his columns and speeches.

A lower court had said that Adams’ speeches and columns on matters of public concern were not protected by the First Amendment and instead constituted “official” speech as part of his job duties.  The 4th Circuit disagreed, finding that Adams’ columns and speeches constituted protected, private speech and that university officials could be held personally liable for damages should Adams ultimately prevail in the case.

“Christian professors should not be discriminated against because of their beliefs, and this decision thoroughly upholds that,” said ADF Senior Counsel David French, who argued before the court in January.  “The 4th Circuit’s decision is a ringing vindication of the academic freedom of public university professors.  Disagreeing with an accomplished professor’s religious and political views is no grounds for refusing him promotion.  Opinion columns are among the purest examples of free speech protected by the First Amendment.”

In its opinion in Adams v. The Trustees of the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, the 4th Circuit wrote that “no individual loses his ability to speak as a private citizen by virtue of public employment. . . .  Adams’ columns addressed topics such as academic freedom, civil rights, campus culture, sex, feminism, abortion, homosexuality, religion, and morality.  Such topics plainly touched on issues of public, rather than private, concern. . . .  The Defendants’ arguments to the contrary rest on the same fallacy engaged by the district court, and focus not on the nature of Adams’ speech at the time it was made, but on his inclusion of those materials in the ‘private’ context of his promotion application.  Nothing in the district court’s analysis or the Defendants’ contentions rebut the conclusion that Adams’ speech was that of ‘a citizen speaking on a matter of public concern.’”

A former atheist, Adams frequently received accolades from his colleagues after the university hired him as an assistant professor in 1993 and promoted him to associate professor in 1998. However, after his conversion to Christianity in 2000, Adams was subjected to a campaign of academic persecution that culminated in his denial of promotion to full professor, despite an award-winning record of teaching, research, and service.

The case now goes back to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina for further proceedings consistent with the 4th Circuit’s conclusions on Adams’ viewpoint discrimination and retaliation claims.

Earlier this year, Marquette University rescinded an offer it had made to Jodi O’Brien to become the dean of its Helen Way Klinger College of Arts and Sciences.  According to an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Dr. O’Brien, a sociologist at Seattle University, “is a lesbian and whose scholarship has focused on sexuality and gender.”  Marquette calls itself “Catholic and Jesuit.”  Regarding homosexual behavior, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states in part as follows:

Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.”  They are contrary to the natural law.

I believe it is safe to assume that Dr. O’Brien’s writings on human sexuality contradict the position of the Roman Catholic Church.  Accordingly, it is understandable that a university which calls itself Catholic might be reluctant to install Dr. O’Brien as one of its leaders.  (If anything, it is curious that Marquette allowed the discussion with Dr. O’Brien to get as far as it did.)

Marquette’s decision to rescind its offer to Dr. O’Brien generated a great deal of controversy and criticism.  On June 9, 2010, Marquette announced that it and Dr. O’Brien had reached ”a mutually acceptable resolution regarding the university’s decision to rescind its contract” with her.  The terms of the agreement were not released.  According to a Marquette media statement, Marquette President Robert A. Wild, S.J., said his decision to rescind the contract “reflected his judgment for the university on issues arising from aspects of Dr. O’Brien’s writings as they pertained to the university’s mission and identity.”

Just as the O’Brien-Marquette controversy heated up, the Wisconsin Arts Board was reviewing a grant application submitted by Marquette’s Haggerty Museum of Art.  The Wisconsin Arts Board is a state agency created and funded by the state legislature.  One of its functions is to make grants, using funds extracted by the state from Wisconsin taxpayers.  The Arts Board voted unanimously to defer a decision on the Haggerty Museum’s application, explicitly citing its concerns over the school’s hiring practices, i.e., its decision to rescind the offer to Dr. O’Brien.  The Haggerty Museum’s application was not seeking funding to pay the salary of Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences or to communicate the university’s or the Roman Catholic Church’s position on same-sex conduct; it simply sought funding to help run an art museum.

On September 11, 2010, the Arts Board finally decided to give the Haggerty Museum a grant ($11,231).  But only because Marquette expressed an acceptable level of contrition for the audacity of its attempt to retain its Catholic identity.  The Arts Board was willing to release funds to Marquette’s art museum because Marquette (a) had (presumably) paid off Dr. O’Brien; and (b) had “pledged to examine the school’s hiring practices and faculty governance,” i.e., contemplate further distancing itself from orthodox Catholic teachings with which the government of the State of Wisconsin (the Arts Board) disagrees.

The Arts Board’s tactics are profoundly inconsistent with genuine religious freedom.  A state agency used its financial power to pressure a religious educational institution to repudiate the institution’s long-held religious view on a moral question — a view that millions of Americans share.  Even worse, the money the Board held hostage (museum funding) had absolutely nothing to do with the position in question (the dean of the college of arts and sciences).  The Board had leverage, and it chose to use it.

If the Arts Board had withheld the money, it would have violated the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  A government entity may not condition receipt of a benefit upon one’s willingness to relinquish the exercise of a constitutional right, particularly where the “condition” has little to do with the purpose of the government benefit program.  Unfortunately, governments often abuse their financial power in this manner; and they are increasingly doing so to punish religious organizations that disagree with government bureaucrats about the morality of homosexual behavior.

But those religious organizations are not without a remedy, even if they cannot persuade the government to do the right thing:  the Constitution is on their side, and the Alliance Defense Fund and its over 1,800 allied attorneys stand ready to defend their fundamental First Amendment freedoms.

Charlotte Allen has posted a thoughtful essay about the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s unfortunate June decision in Christian Legal  Society v. Martinez (“More Wreckage from Ginsburg’s ‘Neutral’ Ruling,” September 7, 2010).  Very much worth a read.

That’s what a North Carolina court seems to be proposing.

Late last month, a state court of appeals held that North Carolina violated the state and federal constitutions by delegating the power to enforce state criminal law to Davidson College because Davidson has a connection to the Presbyterian Church (USA).

The court declared itself compelled by precedent to strike down the arrangement.  But it rather plainly encouraged the state supreme court to revisit controlling precedent and divide religious colleges into two categories — “religiously affiliated” ones (on whom the state could constitutionally confer benefits) and “pervasively sectarian” ones (on whom the state could not).  Davidson presumably would fall into the first category, whereas more Christ-centered institutions would fall into the second.

It is sometimes necessary for courts to determine whether a particular institution is “religious.”  For example, many laws banning discrimination on the basis of religion and “sexual orientation” exempt “religious” employers, making it necessary for a court to determine whether an employer accused of such discrimination is in fact a religious employer when it makes such a claim.

However, differentiating among religious entities based upon their degree of religiosity is a dangerous business.  It is unseemly at best, and unconstitutional at worst, for the government to go trolling through the particulars of a religious organization to determine whether it is “too religious.”   The distinction between “religiously affiliated” and “pervasively sectarian” was a prominent feature of the “bad old days” of Establishment Clause jurisprudence, when the Supreme Court used that distinction to require discrimination against religious entities that were too serious about their faith.  As a plurality of the Supreme Court has recognized, the phrase “pervasively sectarian” itself has its roots in 19th Century anti-Catholicism. 

Let us hope that the North Carolina Supreme Court does not accept the lower court’s invitation to turn the clock back and divide religious colleges into preferred sheep and disfavored goats.