On Comparative Gratitude

Last month The Washington Post published an editorial that was so excellent I considered obtaining the rights to republish it in this issue. The piece—“Inside Liberty University’s ‘Culture of Fear:’ How Jerry Falwell Jr. Silences Students and Faculty who Reject his Pro-Trump Politics”—was written by Will E. Young, the 2017–2018 Editor-in-Chief of Liberty University’s student paper, The Champion. In his article, Young outlines The Champion’s dystopian demise at the hands of rampant bureaucratic overreach by Falwell’s administration.  Young argues that this demise, which he witnessed in its entirety during his four years at Liberty, is directly correlated to Falwell’s outspoken support of President Trump and unspoken insistence all of Liberty University mirror his beliefs.  The administrative “oversight” of The Champion during Young’s freshman year was an irritating but bearable extension of Liberty’s other draconian policies policing student behavior. This oversight gradually increased, first by heavily censoring student writing and then by prohibiting the publication of any article considered politically dissident altogether. In the spring of last year when Young tendered his resignation after his presumed successor was fired for offering a comment to the local press concerning a “liberal” demonstration on campus, Liberty dropped all pretense of allowing The Champion to exist as a student paper. It is now an entirely faculty-run arm of Liberty’s School of Communication.  All student writers must now sign non-disclosure agreements before they are allowed to write for the paper at all. Over a year after he resigned as Editor-in-Chief, Young has yet to be replaced.

Though Young provides a plethora of examples of student groups and faculty members who were suppressed—or in Falwell’s words “tamed”—by this exhaustive campaign to rid the University of political dissent, it was Young himself who became the focus of my sympathy. In his article, Young expresses his profound sadness that he will likely be The Champion’s last Editor-in-Chief. The article itself is the swan song of the paper Young hoped to create— one which would hold the university accountable for its actions and serve as a bastion of free thought on an intellectually homogeneous campus.  These are our goals at The Review and I felt keenly Young’s disappointment at being unable to see them through. However, it would be erroneous for me to, in any way, liken the state of intellectual freedom at Liberty University to the one that I enjoy at Dartmouth.  Despite its titular quality— Liberty University does not uphold intellectual freedom.  Dartmouth does.

 By no means a regular reader of The Washington Post, I first saw Young’s article after it was sent to me by a professor.  This professor, a self-proclaimed liberal, is well aware that I am a conservative and a member of The Review (the former not necessarily being a requirement for the latter.) In addition to never vilifying me for my political beliefs, this professor has always astounded me with his respect for free thought— one which frequently outstrips my own. He sent me the article not out of any desire to condemn conservatives, but rather to convey his shock and express his sincere hopes that Dartmouth would never engage in such suppression. I responded with my confidence in the intellectual integrity of the College but informed my professor that I did not share his shock—far from it actually. 

To those of you who had never heard of Liberty University before reading this, I envy your ignorance. It was cooed about in every Bible study I attended before coming to Dartmouth (and a few since then.) Liberty, a staunchly Evangelical university in Virginia, was founded by conservative Pastor Jerry Falwell is now run by his son Jerry Falwell Jr. Falwell Sr. branded the school as a Christian alternative to a world of secular universities. This campaign was successful, but not nearly as his son’s who has added the argument that Liberty is a conservative alternative to a world of liberal schools. Again, for those of you who have never heard of Liberty University, the words “secular” and “liberal” likely do not call to mind images of Sodom and Gomorrah—they do for many students who flock to Liberty and schools like it in order to flee the immorality of the outside world. I would know as I was almost one of them. In his article Young describes a “culture of fear” that was bred into him at Liberty University. This is really just an extension of the fear of the secular world that is bred into many Evangelicals from childhood. I saw this fear clearly in the eyes of everyone at my church two springs ago when I answered the question, “Will you be going to Liberty in the fall?” 

At the end of his article Young reveals the answer to a question often posed to him, “Do you regret going to Liberty?” He says that he is not sure. I could not be more sure of my choice of college. This is the root of my sympathy for Young.

Like Young, I have not broken with the faith or the political ideology I was raised with. However, in my case, both rest on a firmer foundation now than they did when I left home. I would like to think that this strength is not a reaction to my environment but rather brought about by the careful examination of my beliefs necessitated by living in a community that overwhelmingly does not share them. Any attempt to flee from such a community—whether you are religious or not or conservative or not— would be regrettable. More than anything, at the end of two wonderful years and an extraordinarily wonderful summer, I am grateful, quite sappily so, to be a Dartmouth student. I have sympathy, if not empathy, for those who are not.