OPINION:
In her address last month at CPAC 2017, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos strongly criticized the nation’s college campuses for trying to indoctrinate students. She claimed that the faculty — “from adjunct professors to deans” — are telling students “what to say, and more ominously, what to think. On many college campuses, if you voted for Donald Trump, you’re a threat to the university community.”
Mrs. DeVos should have added “university presidents” to the list of those attempting to influence and indoctrinate. Despite the Internal Revenue Code prohibition on political campaign intervention for all 501(c)(3) colleges and universities, there are several examples of university leaders using speeches, published writings and online blog posts to participate in, or intervene on behalf of or in opposition to candidates in the 2016 presidential race.
Patricia McGuire, the president of Trinity Washington University has been one of the most politically active college president in this election cycle. Using her official position — by posting her partisan attacks on her university website and beyond — Ms. McGuire attacked candidate Donald Trump prior to the election and has recently broadened her attacks by turning her attention to President Trump’s senior adviser, Kellyanne Conway, a graduate of Ms. McGuire’s own Trinity Washington University.
Her most recent partisan attacks have come from her official university website. In an essay titled “On Lies and the Truths We Must Tell,” published on Feb. 11, Ms. McGuire stated that “Conway has been part of a team that thinks nothing of shaping and spreading a skein of lies as a means to secure power.”
Ms. McGuire leveled similar claims against Mr. Trump prior to the election. In a Nov. 3 essay in Religion News, Ms. McGuire wrote that Donald Trump “lies so much that it’s hard to think that he’d uphold any promises he’s made.” Although Ms. McGuire attempted to distance her university from her personal statements in the essay by claiming that “the views expressed here are her own,” she identified herself as “the president of Trinity Washington University — a college committed to the education of women, grounded in the Catholic tradition.”
Ms. McGuire has also used her speeches to continue her partisan attacks. In a Dec. 9 speech posted on her university website Ms. McGuire warned that in the era of President Trump, “We are on the brink of an era that could be as dangerous as the McCarthy era of the early 1950s. We must not think it can’t happen here. It’s already happening one day we may awaken to find Leviathan at our door.”
Mrs. DeVos likely knows that Leviathan has already been at our door in the repressive and authoritarian policies that prevent free expression on our campuses. Just ask Charles Murray, a scholar who was attacked recently at Middlebury College for expressing what some see as politically incorrect views, whether his First Amendment rights have been protected. Preceding the Middlebury College vicious verbal and physical attack on Mr. Murray and Middlebury College professor Allison Stanger, Middlebury College President Laurie Patton, reassured students that “We are a left-leaning campus. I would regret it terribly if my presence here today, which is an expression of support I give to all students who are genuinely seeking to engage in a very tough public sphere, is read to be something which it is not: an endorsement of Mr. Murray’s research and writings. I will state here that I profoundly disagree with many of Mr. Murray’s views.”
The “left-leaning” Leviathan is already here. Ask African-American pro-life activist Ryan Bomberger, who was assailed with “a parade of profanity” from audience members during a question-and-answer session after his recent talk on racial disparities in abortion rates at Harvard Law School. Or ask the peaceful pro-life protesters at the University of Notre Dame in 2008 who attempted to provide a pro-life witness by holding an alternative graduation ceremony when President Obama was given an honorary degree. Some of the protesters — including an elderly priest — were arrested and described in yet another essay by Trinity Washington University’s President Patricia McGuire as “Catholic mobs.” Ms. McGuire concluded that the Notre Dame campus pro-life protesters “defend the rights of the unborn, but have no charity toward the living.”
You can ask most conservative students or faculty members if their First Amendment rights have been protected, and it is likely that they will have a long story to tell of harassment and denigration. For them, Leviathan is already on their campuses. In a published transcript of an interview with Brian Lamb for C-SPAN, Ms. McGuire proudly disclosed, “I am well known for liberal views.” One only has to read her speeches and her blog posts to know that she takes a strong, progressive stand on policy and politicians by awarding honorary degrees to the progressive politicians like Nancy Pelosi and Kathleen Sebelius, and publicly denigrating those she dislikes.
Ms. McGuire’s partisan political activity may have helped her gain public money to expand her campus. But, it is possible that in the future, partisan political activity from the university president’s office may come with a price.
• Anne Hendershott is professor of sociology and director of the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio. She is author of “Status Envy: The Politics of Catholic Higher Education” (Transaction Publishers, 2009).
Please read our comment policy before commenting.