USD yanks professorship from pro-choice professor, but it's OK Tom Smith

Widely covered in the local news has been the recent decision by University of San Diego administrators not to award, after all, the Portman Chair in Roman Catholic Theology, a visiting professorship, to Rosemary Radford Reuther, a theologian from the Claremont Graduate School who supports abortion, at least a lot more than the Roman Catholic Church does, which followers of the abortion debate will know is not very much at all.  As is to be expected, this has generated a fair amount of angst about academic freedom, to wit, is it possible for an independent Catholic university to appoint a theologian who supports abortion rights, which surely would be the academic freedom sort of thing to do?

This shows you how much the critics know.  The better question would be, would it be possible for a philosopher, theologian, moral know-it-all, or any other sort of intellectual, who publicly espoused the RC position on abortion (as in, "The Catholic Church's position, yup, that's me all over!") to get an appointment at even a Catholic University in the United States (barring Notre Dame and those sorts of places), in the absence of specific language in the endowment that required that the holder of a chair be (for want of a better one word description) an orthodox Catholic.  The question is not, does Catholicism allow academic freedom.  The real question to the honest observer is, does academic freedom allow Catholicism?  At least if by Catholicism, you mean Catholicism -- the official version.

The reason Professor Reuther is not getting her visit to USD after all is that the endowment grant contains specific language to the effect that the person holding the chair must not hold public positions inconsistent with those of the Church.  To wit:

The holder of the Portman Chair will be a senior scholar with an established reputation for excellent scholarship and teaching.  Like Msgr. Portman in his long and successful labors in the academy and in the parish, the Chair holder will be one who “thinks with the Church” in the fullest sense of the term.  By thus “rising to the contemplation of the truth” as the Holy Father describes it, he or she will bring tremendous energy to Catholic theology in this academic community.” (emphasis added.)

You don't need to be a lawyer to think that appointing a supporter of abortion to a chair with this language in the endowment raises some serious legal questions, including possibly losing the endowment, and at a minimum the moral question of keeping a promise you made when you took the money in the first place.  Whether or not a fetus is a person, a promise is still presumably a promise.  At least I can say, as a teacher of contract law, courts often take that view.

Arguably, somebody should have caught this issue before the appointment was made, but once it came to the attention of the university administration, they did the right thing, in a context where doing the right thing is hardly the easy thing.  A petition against the decision, which oddly nobody has asked me to sign, is circulating and has gathered lots of signatures.  No doubt there is all kinds of politics swirling about this decision that I, as a humble tenured law professor whose blog is followed by certain sorts of Catholics nationwide, am unaware of.  But at least now the university administration is doing the right thing.  My support may not be particularly welcome, but it makes me feel better offer it.

AND then there's this:

The University of San Diego’s decision to withdraw the appointment of feminist theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether to an endowed chair drew praise and criticism this week. The appointment was reportedly withdrawn because Ruether, who supports abortion, homosexuality, contraception, and calling God “Gaia,” is on the board of directors of the pro-abortion group Catholics for Choice.

 

I don't know if this is a reliable report or not; I'm not really familiar with the Catholic News Agency and I'm reluctant to trust journalistic summaries of academics' positions.  The range and subtlety of my opinions, for example, would be difficult for a journalist to capture.  That said, I have a problem with calling God Gaia.  For one thing, I don't know how to pronounce Gaia.  Is it Gaia, like "Gee, uh, what are you talking about?"  Or is it, Gi, like the pajama like things you wear in Jujitsu?   Or is it Gay-uh, like "have a gay old time, uh"?  This seems to me important, as God will have a hard enough time knowing He is being addressed, even if the term is correctly pronounced.  And also, like, what the heck is a Gaia?  Is it a who or an it?  A them?

Well, let's see.  Wikipedia to the rescue:

 

Gaia (pronounced /ˈgeɪə/ or /ˈgaɪə/)[?? -- oh that's really helpful -- tas] ("land" or "earth", from the Ancient Greek Γαîα; also Gæa or Ge (Modern Greek Γῆ) is the primal Greek goddess personifying the Earth.
Gaia is a primordial and chthonic deity in the Ancient Greek pantheon and considered a Mother Goddess or Great Goddess.
Her equivalent in the Roman pantheon was Terra.

So, she's the Greek goddess of the Earth (and without meaning any disrespect, a heckuva name too for a low-emissions vehicle, but that's something else).  If I can call God Gaia, is it OK also if I call him Zeus or Apollo, either of which would work a lot better for me, just personally speaking, since I view them as much cooler gods, having recently watched Brad Pitt kick ass in Troy?  And is this really consistent with Catholic theology?  I don't know what a "chthonic deity" is, but I'm not sure I want to pray to one, lest I end up like Dr. Raymond Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) at the end of Ghostbusters:

 

Comments

[John]

"The reason Professor Reuther is not getting her visit to USD after all is that the endowment grant contains specific language to the effect that the person holding the chair must not hold public positions inconsistent with those of the Church"

Does that mean a believer in the enforcement of United States immigration laws would be unable to hold the chair as well?

[Matt]

"The better question would be, would it be possible for a philosopher, theologian, moral know-it-all, or any other sort of intellectual, who publicly espoused the RC position on abortion (as in, "The Catholic Church's position, yup, that's me all over!") to get an appointment at even a Catholic University in the United States"

I'm pretty sure that Robbie George still has his endowed chair at Princeton despite thinking things like this.

[Tom Smith]

Princeton is a very unusual place, much to be admired. I wonder if Robbie George could be hired at USD?

[J. Bogart]

Alvin Plantinga (not Catholic, but same position on abortion); Peter van Inwagen; McIntyre. Fletcher.

[Randy]

I have to think that while the reporter is focusing on the abortion issue, the heart of the University's issue might be Ruether's less than orthodox positions on a whole host of other matters (as you point out with the Gaia thing). Chances are good that the reporter (and frankly all the readers and even some of the sources) don't even really understand the theological issues.

[dearieme]

"an orthodox Catholic": golly; I'd assumed you were a Roman Catholic, a follower of the schismatic Patriarch of Rome. Well, well. Anyway, you are quite right - the terms of endowments should be honoured.

[anon]

J. Bogart -- did you see the part of the post where Professor Smith excepted Notre Dame?

[james wilson]

The rules are fairly easy to follow.
A Christian must not be allowed to adhere to Christian beliefs when they run contrary to atheistic reason, even in a Cristian school, hospital, or church.
Atheisic reason is entitled to refuse entry to Christians in all venues for their core beliefs.

[Tom Smith]

By orthodox Catholic, I meant in full communion with Rome, not those schismatics who call themselves the Orthodox Catholic Church. But yes, it's true, religions have a tendency to fragment themselves into tiny pieces. In this case, however, I think the terms of the endowment are sufficiently clear, and the former appointee sufficiently far out, that the ultimate decision should be an easy one.

There are a few places out there such as Notre Dame and Princeton where an out of the closet Catholic can apparently get a job. But a few robins don't make spring. Strange as it may sound, there are plenty of Catholic universities (maybe one should say so-called) where Robbie George would *not* be offered an endowed chair precisely because of his outspoken opposition (however well-articulated and defended) to abortion. I have heard from a seemingly reliable source that this irked the late John Paul no end, and I don't blame him.

I have certainly encountered prejudice against Catholics in the academy, to an extent that has shocked me at least. I advise job applicants to expunge from their resume anything that would suggest non-socially-liberal Catholic, just as (back in the day anyway) you would remove anything from your application to the New York Athletic Club that said Jew. It remains a respectable prejudice among the theorizing classes. Too bad, but there it is.

[J. Bogart]

dearieme:
Read it. Quite like saying something is true everywhere it is true. Smith believes that anti-abortion thinkers are not taken seriously in the academy. The claim is false as to philosophy (which is mentioned specifically by Smith). There and have been significant philosophers who hold such views and whose ability to obtain positions, including endowed chairs (or equivalents) is obvious -- at public and private institutions, religious and non-religious.

Why USD offered Reuther an appointment in theology is an administrative mystery, and I do not see anything reprehensible about withdrawing the offer. She plainly does not fit the bill. But that is wholly separate from whether religious or anti-abortion viewpoints are a genuine bar to success in philosophy.

[dearieme]

Oh no, I'm not going to spend any time on anything to do with abortion - a disagreeable topic on which I anyway have no clear, settled views. Except, of course, that Wade-Roe seems to have been essentially an anti-Constitutional putsch. But then I have come to the conclusion that in the USA you hew to the Constitution in easy times, and choose to ignore it when difficulties arise. Your constitution - the one you use - as distinct from your Constitution - the one you worship - is worthy of study.

[Tom Smith]

I think Bogart is right that philosophy may be at least a partial exception to my screed. Philosophers at least in the Anglo-American mold are an exceptional bunch, and it is probably true that a sufficiently talented philosopher who was anti-abortion could probably get a job somewhere. But, it is still true that being publicly anti-abortion would put a very, very heavy tax on your chances in the academic job market, at all but a few schools that have specifically religious missions. And I have heard philosophers express considerable personal distaste for Christian philosophers such as Alvin, to a degree that I would be shocked were it not to influence hiring decisions on the margin at all. Prejudice operates mostly on the margin.