__NEWS__United States_________________________

Diversity and Its Discontents
The leadership of a Jesuit university struggles to explain the
suppression of a lively and apostolic Catholic program

By Philip F. Lawler

Why did the president of the University of San Francisco suppress the St. Ignatius Institute? 

On January 19—the day that he summarily fired the director and associate director of the St. Ignatius Institute (SII))—Father Stephen Privett, SJ, wrote to Institute alumni explaining that the university’s “current context demands increased coordination and consolidation” and the “strategic concentration” of resources. But within days, the school’s provost was announcing: “The University of San Francisco has not in any way ‘consolidated’ the academic programs of the Institute. . . .” 

Father Privett said that the Institute needed new leadership to improve its academic image. But the provost, James L. Wiser, defended the president’s decision by saying: “The university does not anticipate changing those features of the Institute which have been so effective in exploring and teaching the Catholic tradition.”

Father Privett said that the change was necessary because the SII had a poor academic reputation. But in its 25 years of existence the Institute (which was founded by Father Joseph Fessio, SJ, the publisher of this magazine) had won national awards and recognition for the high quality of its Great Books program. And even while questioning the academic rigor of the Institute, the administrative team of the University of San Francisco (USF) continued to recruit new students for the SII, telling them about the “excellence” of the scholarly program.

After eight weeks of contentious discussions, the debate over the suppression of the SII shows no signs of abating. Father Privett continues to juggle his arguments; his critics continue to call attention to the evident inconsistencies in his public statements. Provost Wiser charges that defenders of the SII have circulated an “incomplete presentation of recent events that does not adequately convey the total picture.” An outgoing SII faculty member counters, more pointedly, that statements by the USF administration have been “designed to deceive” the public. 

Now, as CWR goes to press, friends and foes of the SII are lobbying the USF trustees, who will surely discuss the status of the Institute when they meet on March 23. And an independent group known as Friends of the St. Ignatius Institute (see www.friendsofsii.com) has launched a high-profile publicity campaign, charging that the treatment of the SII is an offense against both academic freedom and Catholic orthodoxy.

No consultations

Father Privett had been president of USF for only five months when the crisis in the SII came to a head on January 19. On that Friday afternoon the two top administrators of the Institute—director John Galten, who had been with the program since its inception in 1976, and his associate John Hamlon—were fired. They were asked to clear their desks and be off the USF campus by the following Monday. A history professor, Paul Murphy, was named as the new head of the Institute. 

On that same day, six SII faculty members—the entire core of full-time lay teachers at the Institute—released a vigorous protest against the firings. They said that the abrupt move “signals clearly that the university administration plans to alter fundamentally the character of the Institute.” And lest anyone fail to understand the issues involved, the faculty members explained that the gutting of the SII was a victory for the forces of “that liberality which can abide all things but orthodoxy.” With the spring semester beginning in only a matter of hours, the six professors announced: “As honorable men and women we will go forward with the course offerings of the Spring 2001 term, but thereafter will no longer voluntarily teach in this program or its surrogates.”

On the first day of that new semester, the Friends of the St. Ignatius Institute made their first entry into the dispute. In a mailing to friends and alumni of the SII, the group called for a moratorium on donations to USF, and a flood of letters to the school’s trustees. The battle had begun.

Although he assumed his presidential duties at USF promising to work cooperatively with the school’s faculty, Father Privett concedes that he did not consult the SII faculty before the January firings. “In contrast to my ordinary way of proceeding,” he said in a February 4 public statement, “I felt that consultation with SII faculty would only heighten tensions and exacerbate hostile feelings.” However, he did not explain the source of those “tensions” and “hostile feelings” which—as everyone close to the situation acknowledges—had characterized the relationship between the SII and the Jesuit community at USF for years. So it was left to the SII lay faculty to ask the rhetorical question: “Why would Jesuits feel inclined relentlessly to attack the one program on campus everyone recognizes as most identifiably Catholic?”

The limits of tolerance

By early February, secular media outlets had begun to notice, and comment upon, the controversy at USF. A February 9 piece in the Wall Street Journal commented that if Father Privett had really been interested simply in “consolidating” the school’s resources, “he might have more profitably done so with those parts of USF that are operating below standard rather than with the one so clearly operating above.” And in a February 12 contribution to National Review Online, Stanley Kurtz took note of the longstanding tension between the SII and the Jesuit community. Kurtz observed: “Privett’s coup, undertaken in secrecy, without the usual consultation, capped years of hostility toward the St. Ignatius great-books program from USF’s liberal theology faculty.”

In their own defense of this Institute, immediately after the firing of the directors, the SII faculty pointed with pride to the apostolic dimension of their work:

Among Institute graduates there are large numbers of converts to Catholicism, many religious vocations, and an amazing array of men and women formed in the Catholic intellectual tradition to face a world that is broadly hostile to Christ and His message…. These graduates continue to leaven this world, and we who have been privileged to contribute to this program take great pride and consolation in their accomplishments. 

Was that evangelical Catholic identity the real reason for the “tensions” that surrounded the SII, and for its ultimate suppression? Stanley Kurtz, writing in National Review Online, made it clear that he thought so: “Clearly, those liberal Jesuits who have placed a Catholic veneer upon an essentially secular dogma take the mere existence of a traditionalist Catholic program at their university as a standing affront.”

The Wall Street Journal made the same point, adding an ironic twist. Despite all the talk of diversity and free inquiry on the Catholic university campus, the Journal observed, USF seemed unwilling to tolerate an unflinchingly orthodox Catholic presence. The Journal remarked: 

Those who remember the debate leading up to the US bishops’ 1999 ratification of Ex Corde Ecclesiae—the document requiring Catholic theologians to be responsive to their bishops—will recall the great fear that it would usher in a witch hunt on Catholic campuses against dissenters. As it happens, we now have our first public casualties in the wake of that document.

Last-gasp efforts

During the early weeks of 2001, Father Privett had scheduled a series of “town hall” appearances, at which he planned to introduce himself to USF alumni at different cities in California. It soon became apparent that the SII controversy would dominate the discussion at these meetings, spoiling the fundraising potential of the events. Soon the new USF president felt compelled to put restrictions on the “town hall” dialogue; he would answer only written questions, and no more than three questions on any single topic. 

The March 23 meeting of the USF trustees now loomed as perhaps the last realistic chance for supporters of SII to reverse the president’s actions. SII faculty members and their Jesuit critics vied for the attention of the trustees in a heated public battle. The Institute’s new director hand-picked a few undergraduates to address the trustees. 

Then, on March 16, the Friends of the SII unveiled their latest initiative: full-page advertisements in both the diocesan newspaper and the San Francisco Chronicle, blasting the USF administration for intolerance of Catholic orthodoxy. The ad was signed by such prominent intellectuals as William Bennett, the former US Secretary of Education; Robert George, the Princeton philosophy professor and member of the International Theological Commission; Michael Novak, the winner of the Templeton Prize; George Weigel, the papal biographer; and such other noted authors and teachers as Hadley Arkes, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Father Richard John Neuhaus, and Ralph McInerny. With such an all-star cast, the ad was sure to bring more public pressure on the USF administration. And while Father Privett’s decision to squelch the SII might be irreversible, an organizer of the ad campaign observed that “there might be other Privetts out there, in other parts of the nation,” who will learn that there may be a high price to pay for an attack on a loyally Catholic institution. 

Philip F. Lawler is the editor of Catholic World Report.