Dear Jimmy ...

How will the administration respond to the recent charges that it does not do enough to combat racism and intolerance on campus?

Of all the questions I have been asked over the course of the past two-plus years, this one is undoubtedly one of the most salient, and most timely, because it speaks to precisely what kind of a community of scholars we intend to be now and in the future. One of my greatest privileges is to teach a seminar each year, something I have endeavored to do for a very long time now, despite my other duties. Just a few days ago, the students in our seminar and I "finished," if one can call it that to have been tried in two class periods, our reading of Voltaire's immortal Candide. We talked at length about intolerance and hatred and the fruits of human cruelty and prejudice. That endless discussion, on the really difficult issues of life, will in the end do more than any pronouncements or edicts or policies since each of us at the end of the day is responsible only for what she or he says and for what she or he does. We should all know, if some among us may choose for whatever reason not to admit it, that racism and intolerance have no place in any society, much less in the United States, much less in an academic setting where civility and tolerance should rule the day, every day, 24/7, as our students are wont to say. When something happens, as did occur with the racial epithet being arrogantly and hurtfully scrawled across a student's white board on her door, the rules by which we should live our lives are harmed but, thankfully because of the actions of scores of our students in response, not broken.

I have always thought that society at large had at least three fundamental pathogens: poverty, prejudice, and injustice. And I have always thought that these societal pathogens were caused by ignorance. Even as idealistic as I have always been about the transformational nature of schools, I have to admit, because it is a fact from which we cannot flee even if we hoped we might, that schools can also be breeding grounds for societal injustices to fester. Examples abound from the history of the modern academy. Many of the universities in Spain were the sites of hideous practices during the Inquisition. And lest we forget that such examples can exist in times closer to our own, the great German philosopher Martin Heidegger more than casually toyed with the Nazi movement when he was the Rector of a prominent German university in the 1930s, even to the point of sporting, in a very troubling picture that has haunted me for more than forty years now, an Hitlerian mustache. Schools can - unless we are all very careful about what we say and do - fail our principles, and my greatest fear would always be that if we fail to have a free and open space here at Trinity, then I am not at all certain where, if anywhere, our students will ever experience in their entire lives such a free and open space in which differences are valued and esteemed and in which each member of our College community can feel free to speak honestly and openly and to live without prejudice.

What happened to our young student friend was callous; a strong indictment that incivility can show its ugly face here. Racism and intolerance are the evil step-siblings of ignorance, and if we fail to combat ignorance, then we fail at our mission. What we as a College can do is this: we can seek to provide throughout our community the bases for combating parochialism and self-centeredness. When those cases arise in which a student has been brought before the Honor Council and has been found guilty of harassment based on race or sexual orientation, we must, and do, respond strongly and clearly. Students have been, and will continue to be, held responsible for their own actions, and the consequences can be swift and persuasive, including suspension and expulsion.

We are embarking upon a series of Conversations About Community, a campus-wide effort initiated by deans Alford and Spurlock-Evans and by Chaplain Heischman. Our ability to foster a nurturing environment at Trinity will depend at the end of the day on self-restraint and self-governance. And we are a learning environment, as schools must be if they are to respond to their calling. Learning transforms, and schools are at root about learning. What better place to address what has befallen us than in these several conversations now beginning on our campus?

I call on my colleagues on the faculty and the staff to help our students address these difficult and piercing issues through the curriculum, encouraging a conjunction between in-class and out-of-class experiences. What we do in and out of the classrooms of this College can help reduce narrowness of vision and parochialism. Internships, volunteer activities, study abroad, participation in the wide range of co-curricular activities, and learning to speak another language are just a few of the many ways to expand our vision and move beyond arrogance, insularity, and cultural self-aggrandizement.

Trinity stands firm in outlawing speech and actions that intimidate or threaten bodily harm to an individual; and we understand that the best remedy for ignorant speech, and ignorant actions, lies steadfastly in well-informed discourse, debate, and well-reasoned argument.

Efforts to erase "ignorance" by policy have always failed: all one has to do is to look at the massive failures in communist China under Chairman Mao. What the students did in the Mather Hall demonstration after a coward thought it appropriate to write a hateful word on a student's door, was to say loudly, without any possible equivocation, for the entire community: "I am here, this is my College, I do not approve of such actions against any member of our community, and we need to work together, all of us, to build a community of which we can all be proud and in which each member can be valued."