Last week, the president of The College of William & Mary resigned abruptly after he found out his contract wasn’t going to be renewed later this year. President Gene Nichol, a former administrator at my alma mater, had been in the news for a couple of decisions he made. One was removing a cross from the campus’ historic Wren Chapel. Another was permitting a traveling show of sex workers to visit the campus. William & Mary is a public university of the Commonwealth of Virginia, it should be noted.
When the Wren Chapel controversy broke, we criticized some of the media coverage for not explaining that William & Mary is a state-run university. I don’t think I’m overstating things to say that, on First Amendment establishment clause grounds, we didn’t see what the big fuss was.
But fuss there was. Alumni, donors and students were deeply hurt that Nichol had acted unilaterally and without consensus. When donors began to question his administrative style, he didn’t weather the storm terribly well. William & Mary’s governing board called for an independent review of Nichol’s administrative capabilities. That review found him lacking and the board made its decision last week.
Well, you don’t read me saying this too frequently, but I think The Los Angeles Times overplayed the religion angle in their story about the Nichol affair. The headline promised a story “Where religion, ideology and the Web cross.” Reporter David Savage writes glowingly about Nichol, calling him a “champion of civil liberties and the Bill of Rights”:
The dispute underscores the deep divide over the role of religion in public institutions, and shows how an ideological firestorm can be sparked on a college campus. …
After a year in Williamsburg, he decided that the cross in the Wren Chapel should not be on display at all times but only during Christian services. He said he was protecting the 1st Amendment and the separation of church and state.
“The display of a Christian cross — the most potent symbol of my own religion — in the heart of our most important building sends an unmistakable message that the chapel belongs more fully to some of us than to others,” he told students in November 2006.
Conservatives said the presence of a cross in a chapel did not violate the 1st Amendment. They started a website called Save the Wren Cross and another called Should Nichol Be Renewed?
The story goes on to compare the incident to other high-profile controversies, such as Lawrence Summers leaving Harvard over his suggestion that men and women have some intrinsic differences and Duke’s President being criticized for how he handled the defamation of the lacrosse players there.
The clashes are fueled by the Internet, Savage writes. He also writes a bit more about the Wren Chapel controversy as it relates to the First Amendment, comparing the case to the ones about Ten Commandments displays on public property. I actually don’t think those comparisons are apt, but that’s for another story.
Savage quotes one prominent lawyer saying it’s sad that enforcing the First Amendment cost Nichol his job:
But Jay Sekulow, counsel for the conservative American Center for Law and Justice, said: “I think [Nichol] completely misread the law and the alumni. This was a legal blunder and a public-relations blunder,” he said.
Sekulow’s contention that Nichol made a public-relations blunder is obviously true. And it was one that caused one donor to withdraw a $12-million pledge. When Nichol falsely said he’d met fundraising goals, concern about his governing style grew. Many observers, including former college president Tim Sullivan, worried that Nichol’s management would displease the larger college community. Having spent a bit of time in university fundraising, raising money is, sad to say, the primary job of a university president. Even though William & Mary is state-run, it still gets the majority of its funding from private sources.
It isn’t false to write that religion issues played a part in Nichol’s failed presidency. But I think it is false to say that religious issues caused the Board of Visitors to let him go. Nichol aired his side of the story, alleging that he was let go because he supported the First Amendment, in a campus-wide email. The Board of Visitors was much more discreet.
Still, days before Savage’s story ran, the Virginian-Pilot explained the board’s perspective:
The board said in its statement that its decision was not based on ideology or any single public controversy, and it praised Nichol’s accomplishments and passion. But “a number of problems” were holding back the college, the board said, and a leadership change was needed.
The board’s rector, Michael Powell, declined in a phone interview to specify the problems. He, too, praised Nichol for increasing diversity and for how he connected with students. But Powell said the board, using an outside consultant to help with its review, heavily weighed other presidential duties such as public and alumni relations and fundraising.
Four local newspapers printed editorials that supported the board’s decision. All of them dealt with Nichol’s management style.
Nichol’s narrative — that he was the victim of a conservative cabal — serves him better than the board’s narrative that he was not an effective administrator. And I’m sure it pleases Nichol’s conservative detractors. But at the very least the reporter should look at everyone’s incentives in this story. And reporters should remember that money is a very strong incentive.
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Comments (12) |
February 19, 2008, at 8:15 am
Definitely there is more going on here than we’re being told, and to see it put as “Christian infiltrators taking over university force out President” is very unhelpful, to say the least.
On the other hand, Williams acted in a manner that was historically insensitive, even ignoring the religious aspect. The cross has a place in the life of the institution as a donation by former students, and it is undeniable that the Wren Chapel began as a Christian place of worship. To be consistent, he should have insisted that the memorial plaques (one of which I see in the photo) were taken off the wall and the altar railings removed and the altar itself made moveable so that these Christian elements would not be offensively on display during non-Christian times.
Surely he could have foreseen that the family of the donors would be upset? Let’s face it, it wasn’t about a Christian symbol for them, it was about the memories of their departed who attended William and Mary, and you don’t have to be a university professor to see that it would be perceived by the family as saying “Let’s hide this horrible thing that was foisted upon us away, because who cares about dead former college members?”
It was handled badly, and if it’s an example of his administrative style, then it’s a clue as to why his contract was not renewed.
February 19, 2008, at 11:34 am
To be consistent, if the Establishment Clause is followed to the letter, William and Mary shouldn’t even have a chapel, regardless if it is cleared for use by every denomination.
February 19, 2008, at 12:24 pm
Wrigley:
Air Force Academy? Navy? West Point?
Remove all historic chapels?
It is a crucial church-state question on which the courts have been willing to compromise.
February 19, 2008, at 12:41 pm
I agree with Mollie’s appraisal. The alarm about Christian pressure echoes Hillary’s complaints about a “vast right-wing conspiracy.†To some mentalities, I think, the best Christian is one who shuts up and pays the bill — whether it’s taxes or tuition.
February 19, 2008, at 1:50 pm
This is a mainly religious story - the inability to raise funds properly was the result of messing with the religious character of a beloved historic Christian building next door to colonial Williamsburg. It’s about the religious history of our country.
I visited Williamsburg where the docent at the village church told us about inhabitants being jailed and fined if they did not regularly attend the Anglican Church. No other kind of church was allowed in Williamsburg - not even Congregationalists, Methodists or Baptist. Things were even stricter at Jamestown.
The United States was essentially seen as Protestant at its beginings. The “Establishment” clause seems to have originally meant that no particular brand of Protestantism was to be official. There are Christian religious symbols all over the Supreme Court building, for heaven’s sake. I think a lot of this is inherited from the compromises made in England which finally accomodated Methodists and other dissenters, but still discriminated officially against Catholics and Jews.
The US Constitution, unlike England’s laws at the time, functioned to get rid of official discrimination against Catholics and Jews; but, nonetheless, a generic Protestantism retained pride of place in the US until very recently. Episcopalianism, the US version of Anglicanism, was the default version, although not officially “established”. Look at the National Cathedral - it’s Episcopalian, as were most of our Presidents until recently; it is used for all kinds of state functions, including praying as a nation after 9/11. It’s our Westminster Abbey. Why no national services at the Catholic National cathedral in DC? Or the Baptist or Presbyterian church? Reagan’s funeral was there even though he was a Baptist; and, I’ll bet Baptist Jimmy Carter’s funeral will be there, too.
It seems to me that a lot of the angst over Christian symbols is a belated realization that the traditional view of the US as Protestant Christian is on the wane. Many citizens now want the government to take the “establishment clause” seriously, much to the shock of some people.
Good questions - what about the chapels at the service academies? What about the traditionally Protestant chaplains for the Senate, etc? Why the upset that always happens when a Catholic is chosen? Why should there be chaplains at all for government organizations? We need to give up the “legal fiction” that we have no established religion and accept that there really, really should be no government ties to religion of any kind.
The more secular and/or religiously diverse the country becomes, the more necessary it is to put away the privileging of favored types of Christianity.
Perhaps the Crusade for Christ or a historical society could be allowed to purchase the Wren chapel and maintain it without government funds being involved. That’s seems more fair and would preserve historical relics of a religious nature without having government entanglement.
February 19, 2008, at 3:01 pm
I don’t know if it is a full-blown Church versus State affair, but there’s no doubt he handled it in a horribly ham-fisted way.
““The display of a Christian cross — the most potent symbol of my own religion — in the heart of our most important building sends an unmistakable message that the chapel belongs more fully to some of us than to others,†he told students in November 2006.”
Okay, somebody parse this statement for me: is he talking about the Wren Chapel here? If so, why is it “our most important building”? More important than the classrooms and library? A Christian cross in a building that is, oh let me see, a Christian chapel? Built for that purpose? Dedicated or even consecrated according to Christian rituals? Goodness me, who’d have expected such a symbol there? Hey, Mr Diversity, had it been the Wren Synagogue or Wren Meeting House or whatever, would you have insisted on removing Jewish/Buddhist/Quaker/Muslim/Native American symbols because of the possible offence they would cause? If not, why not?
Really, I do think it was a case of ‘open mouth, insert foot’ here. And as I said before, if that’s his style, no wonder the Board want to shove him out the door and get someone more unctuous in who won’t insult/antagonise potential donors (‘hey, if you don’t want to give me loadsamoney to do things I wanna do exactly the way I wanna do ‘em, the heck with you, mister!’).
February 19, 2008, at 4:15 pm
Nice article. As an alumnus and original Save the Wren Cross member, I totally agree that this was not a religious decision by the board. This was about a bull in a china cabinet. I would debate you, however, on the right to have Christian chapels at state-funded universities.
February 19, 2008, at 7:12 pm
There was more to the Wren Chapel issue than religion. There was a over-simplified view of the entire Wren Building. The Wren Building is no ordinary Public Space. It’s a 300 year old building with more history than just about any other building in America. Historic buildings have to be treated with a bit more care than Nichol showed here. They are sentimental. Therein lies Nichol’s problem. He ran roughshod over anyone who disagreed with him - particularly alumni. He blamed the Alumni for being “hostile to diversity” despite their own efforts over 300 years to improve race and ethnic relations (starting with the Powhatan in the 1600s.) He acted as though we had never participated in a single charity act in our lives. He acted as though all good things arrived at the College with his appointment as President. He ignored the contributions of the 15 generations who came before him. THAT’s what went wrong with the Wren Chapel. If he had said “I know this is a beloved ornament, but it’s really out of place in a space presented as it was in 1732” - he would have had supporters. Because he would have been right. There was no cross in 1732. But he used the cross as a weapon. He used it, and the infamous email from Dr. Raphael to insult and slander alumni, by portraying us as racists and neanderthals. Then he oversimplified the argument again by making it about religion, rather than respect. Nobody ever debated the right of groups to remove the cross for scheduled events. We objected to the implication that anyone who supported the cross was a hateful bigot - despite facts to the contrary.
February 19, 2008, at 7:17 pm
The Cross Compromise of March 2007, never mentioned by Nichol as he bolted from his job last week, was embraced by all parties, including SavetheWrenCross.org, the most vocal and public of his opposition. Indeed, Nichol himself called the compromise “a very strong solution” (Virginia Gazette, March 7, 2007) and that he “recognizes the college’s history and tradition as well as the changing needs of our campus community… I am very pleased with the outcome— especially the beautiful display case†(Daily Press, August 4, 2007). Virginia’s Democrat Governor, Tim Kaine, defended the cross and questioned the need to remove it from a Christian Chapel. Go to
http://www.vainformer.com/media/KAINEONCROSS.wav
to hear his interview. If these facts mean an ideological war is being waged against Nichol, then he is fighting with his own political party and against a happy former adversary.
Four local papers — two student-run, two community-based— have run editorials that best sum up the real reasons Nichol finds himself without the keys to the Wren Chapel anymore (a perk of the President’s Office). Please read:
Flat Hat: Proper Decision: http://www.flathatnews.com/opinions/1917/staff-editorial-a-painful-proper-decision
Flat Hat: Nichol Lied, the Dream Died: http://www.flathatnews.com/opinions/1588/with-released-e-mail-nichol-supporters-feel-lost
Virginia Informer: Time to Move on After Right Decision: http://www.vainformer.com/
Daily Press: Nichol’s Farewell: http://www.dailypress.com/news/opinion/dp-ed_nichol_edit_0213feb13,0,7332211.story
Virginia Gazette: End of an Error: http://www.kkbruno.com/Feb%2013.%202008%20Gazette%20editorial%20End%20of%20an%20Error.jpg
Also, W&M students have defaced the Wren Building in the wake of Nichol’s resignation. See photos here:
Virginia Informer: Nichol Supporters Vandalize Campus : http://www.vainformer.com/
February 19, 2008, at 11:25 pm
Let me first say that the recent vandalism on campus is despicablre and that view is held, it seems, by everyone except for the individuals responsible. The majority of the students have expressed their anger and disappointment in responsible ways, and will continue to do so. More than anything else, we want information and the truth—we have never been so naive as to believe the decision could be reversed. Instead, we are asking for answers and transparency.
Martha, The wren cross was given to the college in the first half of the 20th century by Bruton Parish, a local Anglican church, because they had an extra. Removing the cross from the altar at times other than religious services only offends those of us who fear that Christianity will be unseated in this country—a laughable idea. Many Christian’s support the policy and do not see it as intolerant. As for the arguments about tradition, I’ve already mentioned why they are void of accuracy, and the truth is that removing the cross restored the Chapel to its original state.
Again, Martha, if you did your research you would know that the Wren Chapel is simply one wing in the College’s most important building, and the oldest academic building still in use in the country. In the College’s early days, the Wren Building (so named because it is thought to have been designed by Sir Christopher Wren) was the College in its entirety. Students studied, ate, and lived in its hallowed halls. Today it is the home to the religion department, the Chapel, and the Great Hall where students take their oath to the Honor Code during orientation, toss their sprigs of ivy into the Yule Log fire, hold initiations, and much more. Above all, it is the symbol of William and Mary, and Nichol sought to make it an inclusive symbol which represented more of the community. We should also remember that the College’s most famous student, Thomas Jefferson, wanted to be remembered by the three things which are carved on his tombstone: as the author of the Declaration of Independence, and the Statute of Virginia for RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, and the father of Uva.
Todd,
I do believe that was Nichol’s message about the cross. As a Christian he felt it inappropriate in a public, state-funded space which represented a secular school. I would also like to object to your argument that the school sought to better relations with other races since its inception, I would hardly call taking Powhatan children from their families unwillingly and forcing them to convert to christianity and become “civilized” an inclusive maneuver.
Jim,
I would like to believe that the Board made their decision without influence from outside factors. The truth is that it is hard to look beyond the fact that they were called to Richmond to answer questions at the peril of their jobs. In fact, I find the behavior of the General Assembly to be the worst in this whole situation. Also, Michael Powell effectively lied when he said the decision was made unanimously. Robert Blair ‘68 has just resigned in protest.
I hope the deep rift in our community can be healed, otherwise the College is going to lose a whole generation of alumni donors and activists…we will most certainly continue to be active in our communities and the world, but unless we find satisfactory closure in the coming months we may have no interest in our alma mater, which seems to have no interest in us and the moment. I hope I am mistaken.
February 20, 2008, at 12:13 am
Thanks W&M student for shedding some much needed light on this stupid controversy.
February 20, 2008, at 1:19 pm
That W&M student was more of an angry rant than needed light.