Social change doesn’t happen gradually. It happens in fits and bursts. In retrospect, the line between the old values and the “new way” can be seen very clearly, but when we are in the middle of such a change, we oftentimes don’t know it. I believe we are today at a crossroads and in the middle of such a change. We are in a battle for the cultural soul of our country.
My Freshman year at Wittenberg was 1969. Student unrest and campus demonstrations were happening all over our country every day. Demonstrations against the Vietnam War and Civil Rights activism reached a level in our country that was unknown for two generations—since reconstruction and “Jim Crow” in the South after our Civil War. Over a short two-year period of time, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated and student violence on the Kent State University Campus resulted in the loss of life of students.
All this was occurring at a time when recreational drug use (abuse) was being tolerated and even encouraged by those in academia—professors and administrators, and law enforcement turned their eyes away from the problem. Crack cocaine in the cities and methamphetamine and marijuana in the rural areas and suburbs were just as destructive of opportunity and hope for people of all races and nationalities, but especially many of those living on the margins whose hope for upward mobility was snuffed out because the adults in the room didn’t stand up to evil.
During the late 60’s and early 70’s two great men stood up to the Alinsky’s mobs of organized protestors. Fr. Theodore Hesburgh the President of Notre Dame from 1952-1987 and Cannon Charles Martin the Rector of St. Albans School for Boys at the Washington D. C. National Cathedral during a similar time. Both self-identified as “liberal educators”. Both felt that education was so important that it should not be subject to “the violence of faction”. Both stood up to “non-violent” violence and were unpopular as they exerted order over their institutions. Both stood up to forces that threatened the integrity of the educational process via either political agitation and demonstration or pandemic (influenza in 1975).
The message is school, and education is so important, that our classrooms and laboratories will always be open. Education will not take a back seat. Those individuals and groups that deny access to the educational process of those seeking such access, are in fact violating the rights of the great majority of law-abiding students who are themselves very serious about education, many of whom realize that such an education is a privilege and a great opportunity. They realize that either they or their parents are paying a great price for such a unique opportunity.
Those “occupying” space are not demonstrating. Their claim to that property should be well defined by a permit to demonstrate with well-defined side rails of time and place.
I had occasion to talk to Fr. Hesburgh in 1991. I was asked by Dr. Dave Lachiondo the principal at Bishop Kelly High School to try to get the good FR. to come to Boise and speak at the BK graduation that year. I called up the library at Notre Dame and FR. Hesburgh picked up the phone! All he wanted for giving the speech was an airline ticket, a home with a family—not a hotel room, and a one-day guided fishing trip on Silver Creek. About 3 months before he was to give the speech, he had a massive heart attack and was unable to attend the event.
I did get to talk to him on two other occasions and during one of those times I asked him about the student demonstrations and how he delt with them.
The bottom line is that students could march if given permission via permit. They could not deny access to classrooms or laboratories by other students. When asked to disperse they were given 15 mins to disperse—the infamous Hesburgh rule, and if they didn’t and if they were students they would be expelled from school, and if they were “non-student agitators” they would be arrested and turned over to the civil authorities and charged with trespassing. If they were foreign students their visas would be put under review, and if they were foreign non-student agitators their visas would be given to Federal authorities and their stay in our country would be in jeopardy.
Cannon Martin had a similar policy at St. Alban’s. These two great men, liberals, clerics, educators and academicians understood the importance of law and order. They understood the importance of education. They understood that they were responsible for protecting the rights of all students not just student agitators. There was no room for moral ambiguity in either of their lives. They both were able to project political and personal courage and they both understood their “Christian Duty” to protect their own values, but most importantly the values of the institutions they represented.
Neither in my humble opinion would have tolerated the antisemitism and hate that we are seeing on our college campuses and streets today. They both supported and advocated for Jewish professors and teachers at their institutions. They both understood evil when they saw it, and they both understood “we are all called to stand against evil”. Fr. Hesburgh.
Ephesians 4:27 “Do not give the devil a foothold”
Why are so many of our leaders today afraid to stand up against evil? It is time for all of us to stand up to evil.
