Unless, like me, you are a graduate (or student) of the
College of William and Mary ("W&M"), you probably wouldn't recognize the importance of that post title. But I've struggled all afternoon and evening with what to write after
today's resignation of the College's 26th president, Gene Nichol. Perhaps you might think it's not even worthy of a blog post, especially from a sucky blog in Florida that focuses on politics. But if you think that, I think you would be wrong ... because Nichol's ouster has
everything to do with politics and, specifically, the divergent ideologies of the W&M leadership.
First, let me say this: W&M means a
great deal to me. I don't know the extent to which graduates from other colleges and universities feel a sense of loyalty and devotion to their
alma maters, and indeed, as a student there, I can remember thinking, "Ah, it's just a college. It's a place to spend four years. Big deal -- I'll never be sentimental about it." Well, I don't know whether fellow alumni Jon Stewart ('84) or Robert Gates ('65) would agree, but the longer I'm away from Williamsburg, the more drawn to it I feel. In short, there really
is something about (William and) Mary.
So, it was a shock to the system to receive an
e-mail from President Nichol (right) this morning, through my alumni e-mail subscription. It reads in part:
I was informed by the Rector on Sunday, after our Charter Day celebrations, that my contract will not be renewed in July. Appropriately, serving the College in the wake of such a decision is beyond my imagining. Accordingly, I have advised the Rector, and announce today, effective immediately, my resignation as president of the College of William & Mary. I return to the faculty of the school of law to resume teaching and writing.
[...]
I have also hoped that this noble College might one day claim not only Thomas Jefferson’s pedigree, but his political philosophy as well. It was Jefferson [a 1762 graduate of W&M -- ed.] who argued for a "wall of separation between church and state" -- putting all religious sects "on an equal footing." He expressly rejected the claim that speech should be suppressed because "it might influence others to do evil," insisting instead that "we have nothing to fear from the demoralizing reasonings of some if others are left free to demonstrate their errors." And he averred powerfully that "worth and genius" should "be sought from every condition" of society.
Sadly, President Nichol departs his office today as the victim of an ideological war that has pitted the "liberal" freedoms that our Constitution provides -- freedoms of speech and of expression, and of "the right of the people peaceably to assemble" -- against the prevailing right-wing demagoguery of those who would seek to stifle, indeed to destroy, those freedoms.
The "other side" of the ideological war has been led by the College's Rector (chair of the Board of Visitors, equivalent to "Trustees"), Michael Powell ('85). A contemporary of mine at the College, Powell, the son of former Secretary of State and noted sycophant Colin Powell, is perhaps best known for his radically patriarchal chairmanship of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which featured the previously unheard-of introduction of usurious punitive fines for radio stations that intentionally or inadvertently permitted obscenities to be aired. Powell has gathered around him a cadre of like-minded pearl-clutchers and censors who have made it their crusade -- their
jihad, if you will (for it truly is a
holy war from their perspective) -- to artificially shelter the entire William and Mary community from anything that might inconveniently broaden the College's horizons. I would call it "opening students' minds," they might say "
poisoning students' minds," but in any event the effect was the same: to
restrict awareness and understanding and to
impose a single-minded, Christianist viewpoint on the College -- one that had been absent, for the most part, since its earliest days as a seminary around the turn of the 18th Century.
Powell and his cronies vilified Nichol, whose academic expertise as a law professor is in
First Amendment jurisprudence, for four key decisions, which the now-former president described in his e-mail as "hav[ing] stirred ample controversy:"
First, as is widely known, I altered the way a Christian cross was displayed in a public facility, on a public university campus, in a chapel used regularly for secular College events -- both voluntary and mandatory -- in order to help Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and other religious minorities feel more meaningfully included as members of our broad community. The decision was likely required by any effective notion of separation of church and state. And it was certainly motivated by the desire to extend the College’s welcome more generously to all. We are charged, as state actors, to respect and accommodate all religions, and to endorse none. The decision did no more.
Second, I have refused, now on two occasions, to ban from the campus a program funded by our student-fee-based, and student-governed, speaker series. To stop the production because I found it offensive, or unappealing, would have violated both the First Amendment and the traditions of openness and inquiry that sustain great universities. It would have been a knowing, intentional denial of the constitutional rights of our students. It is perhaps worth recalling that my very first act as president of the College was to swear on oath not to do so.
Third, in my early months here, recognizing that we likely had fewer poor, or Pell eligible, students than any public university in America, and that our record was getting worse, I introduced an aggressive Gateway scholarship program for Virginians demonstrating the strongest financial need. Under its terms, resident students from families earning $40,000 a year or less have 100% of their need met, without loans. Gateway has increased our Pell eligible students by 20% in the past two years.
Fourth, from the outset of my presidency, I have made it clear that if the College is to reach its aspirations of leadership, it is essential that it become a more diverse, less homogeneous institution. In the past two and half years we have proceeded, with surprising success, to assure that is so. Our last two entering classes have been, by good measure, the most diverse in the College’s history. We have, in the past two and a half years, more than doubled our number of faculty members of color. And we have more effectively integrated the administrative leadership of William & Mary. It is no longer the case, as it was when I arrived, that we could host a leadership retreat inviting the 35 senior administrators of the College and see, around the table, no persons of color.
While the cross controversy generated a great deal of emotion on both sides (and had, for me, the most personal impact, as I well remember participating in many events in the Wren Chapel, where the cross had been displayed for years), it was the second of the aforementioned decisions, the hosting of a sex workers' art show at the College, which drew the most ire and ultimately, according to at least one W&M official with whom I spoke today, was the final straw.
I'm not going to throw a whole bunch of links at you. If you're interested, just Google Nichol's name along with "Wren Cross" or "sex show" and you'll get more information than you might ever want. The point is that, while our soldiers fight a so-called "War on Terror" overseas, we who remain here are fighting another intangible, equally dangerous concept:
censorship.
Mind control. I don't mean "censorship" in its most superficial sense, as in
taking Don Imus off the air for being a racist tool. I mean the kind of pervasive censorship that limits our intellectual growth as human beings, the kind that would insist that there is
only one true religion,
only one true ideology,
only one proper and correct perspective on all things. Thanks to the Bush crime syndicate (of which both Powell
père and Powell
fils have been card-carrying members) and to the Newt Gingrich-led Project for a New American Century before it, with the willing participation of the mainstream corporate-run media, Americans have become indoctrinated over the last fifteen or so years to the neoconservative view. Gene Nichol's resignation is merely another symptom in a disease that is nearing epidemic proportions: the idea that we, as Americans, are unable to think for ourselves or to permit others the opportunity to think freely and openly, and therefore we become less intellectually curious and let others tell us how to think, how to feel, how to react.
With regard to the resignation itself, what I find most appalling of all is that Powell apparently tried to
buy Nichol's silence. Let Nichol explain it, again from his e-mail:
I add only that, on Sunday, the Board of Visitors offered both my wife and me substantial economic incentives if we would agree "not to characterize [the non-renewal decision] as based on ideological grounds" or make any other statement about my departure without their approval. Some members may have intended this as a gesture of generosity to ease my transition. But the stipulation of censorship made it seem like something else entirely. We, of course, rejected the offer. It would have required that I make statements I believe to be untrue and that I believe most would find non-credible. I’ve said before that the values of the College are not for sale. Neither are ours.
Bravo! I applaud Gene Nichol for his steadfast refusal to kowtow to such demands. It is quite literally painful to consider the unconscionable behavior of the Board of Visitors, through Rector Powell, in offering "hush money" so that Nichol might hide the true nature of the Board's decision.
Naturally, Powell denies any ideological motivation, and he sent out
his own e-mail, on behalf of the Board of Visitors, less than four hours after Nichol. It reads in pertinent part:
It is critical to explain that this decision was not in any way based on ideology or any single public controversy. To suggest such a motivation for the Board is flatly wrong. Indeed, the Board has been repulsed by the personal attacks on the President and his family. The uncharitable personal assaults are unworthy of anyone who professes to care about the College and there should be no joy when things do not work out between good people.
Many policies championed by President Nichol are fully embraced by the Board. We agree unflinchingly with the President’s efforts to make William and Mary a more diverse educational environment. His achievements in this area will be the most enduring part of his legacy. We will continue the pursuit with vigor and will insist that all future presidents of the College do as well. We strongly support the Gateway program and will work to put it on sound financial footing by building an endowment that will allow it to blossom. Equally, we continue to see the enormous value that attends to the efforts of internationalization and civic engagement. And, so there is no doubt, the Board will not allow any change in the compromise reached on the placement of the Wren Cross.
Powell chose his words very, very carefully, in the finest tradition of the Bush crime syndicate; he has learned well. I'm sure the Board embraced "many policies" ... but not the ones that led to his ouster. Indeed, the decision may not have been "based on ... any single public controversy;" but multiple, or private, controversies might explain it quite clearly. And it's mighty charitable of the Board to agree to adhere to the compromise
they themselves ratified regarding the Wren Cross: that it be removed from permanent display in the Chapel but be available freely to any and all groups that request it. However, it's instructive, and indeed enlightening, that Powell said nothing about the sex workers' art show, unless you count his supercilious platitudes about "a more diverse educational environment."
William and Mary is a school with a proud tradition. In its 315 years of existence, the College has had only
26 presidents. Nichol's three predecessors, who comprise my personal connection to the College dating back to my matriculation in 1983, served for an average of over eleven years each. It is highly unusual that a president of W&M would serve only two-and-a-half years -- in fact, it is the shortest presidential tenure since 1848, and only two presidents have served less time than Nichol.
Such is the legacy of Rector Michael Powell and "his" Board of Visitors -- a legacy that looks alarmingly like the scorched-earth policy of the Bush crime syndicate. Just as
Drunky McStagger spit on hundreds of years of military non-aggression by starting a "war" for the first time in American history, so too has Powell besmirched three centuries of openness, loyalty, and inquisitive scholarship by deposing Gene Nichol.
Until now, the ideological impact of the Board of Visitors traditionally has been limited to
the chancellorship, a purely ceremonial position that since its resurrection in 1986 has been held by Warren Burger, Margaret Thatcher, Henry Kissinger, and Sandra Day O'Connor (the current chancellor), right-wing icons all. It saddens me to predict that the next president of the College of William and Mary is likely to fall in the same category of wingnut warrior, someone who, like so many in the federal government today, lacks even the most basic credentials for the job, but who is a fervent, enthusiastic supporter of the neoconservative agenda.
Today is a sad day for me and for my dear
alma mater. And while I know most who read this (if anyone does) have no horse in this race, I hope you at least can see that it is a sad day for free thought in America.
(
cross-posted at
Pax Americana)
Labels: Gene Nichol, George W. Bush, Michael Powell, neocons, rant, Virginia, William and Mary
Well, I think I'll get off the political kick for at least one post. 
