January-February 2001

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State of the Profession: The Show Must Go On

By Martin D. Snyder

Plays have been offending people for a very long time. The Greek tragedian Euripides, for example, rarely took first prize in Athenian dramatic competitions. The unorthodox views expressed by his characters often offended the religious and philosophical sensibilities of his Athenian audience. Still, the plays of Euripides were produced, and the audience had an opportunity to judge the author’s work and ideas on their merits. Not long ago, the community of Viterbo University was denied such an opportunity.

In 1990 the Association’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure and Council endorsed the statement Academic Freedom and Artistic Expression. It notes that both faculty members and students, when they engage in the production of visual or performing arts, pursue the mission of their institution just as surely as those who write, teach, and study in other academic disciplines. Artistic expression therefore merits the same assurance of academic freedom that is accorded to other scholarly and teaching activities. Public presentations of the artistic work of faculty and students are integral to teaching, learning, and scholarship and merit no less protection. The statement specifically notes that "academic institutions are obliged to ensure that regulations and procedures do not impair freedom of expression or discourage creativity by subjecting artistic work to tests of propriety or ideology."

Attempts to curtail play productions at academic institutions on grounds that they are offensive to the campus community or the public occur with disturbing frequency. But some campus leaders stand firm. In 1985 Sean Fanelli, president of Long Island’s Nassau County Community College and the recipient of the AAUP’s eighteenth Alexander Meiklejohn Award, refused to cancel a campus production of the satirical play Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You, despite the protestations of the Nassau County executive and the bishop of the local Catholic diocese.

More recently, William Holda, president of Kilgore College in Texas, defended his drama department’s right to produce the Pulitzer Prize winning Angels in America despite local objections, mostly from a neighboring Baptist congregation. Holda’s action earned him a PEN Center award for defense of the First Amendment, but also motivated the local county commission to withdraw its financial support of the college’s annual drama festival.

Defending principle is often costly, but not always. Bruce Murphy, president of Northwestern College in Iowa, refused to knuckle under to a local preacher who protested the production of When Scott Comes Home, a play by a university faculty member about a family whose son dies of AIDS. A former Northwestern board director saw the play and found it "the most touching play" he had ever seen. He donated a million dollars to the college.

By contrast, William J. Medland, president of Wisconsin’s Viterbo University, canceled his institution’s Sexual Diversity Awareness Week last October, as well as its centerpiece production of the musical Splendora. The play deals with a young man’s coming to grips with his own homosexuality. Medland cited the strong reactions of some community groups as the reason for the cancellation. Members of the Vatican II Renewal Project, a conservative Catholic group, threatened to withhold donations and hold demonstrations if the production went forward. Students rallied in protest of the president’s decision and formed an independent production company to stage Splendora off campus. The show will go on in January on the campus of the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse.

Amid the Splendora controversy, the Catholic bishop of the diocese of La Crosse, Raymond L. Burke, sent to the faculty, administration, and board copies of the apostolic constitution Ex Corde Ecclesiae and the Catholic bishops’ The Application of Ex Corde Ecclesiae for the United States. (Richard McBrien writes about these documents in this issue of Academe.) Bishop Burke also sent a cover letter in which he described the university as "a most important treasure for the Church in carrying out her mission of seeking the truth and teaching it with integrity."

One wonders just how successfully the university will be able to assist in such a mission when opposing and uncomfortable opinions are stifled. One wonders why the president decided not to follow the courageous example of other university and college leaders who have found themselves in similarly embattled positions. One wonders why the bishop failed to speak up forcefully on behalf of his "treasure’s" academic freedom and integrity. One wonders, sadly.