[Vision2020] Re: Open letter query

[bill london]

Several days ago, I sent an open letter to Roy Atwood, dean of New St. 
Andrews College regarding the Wilson/Wilkins booklet on Southern Slavery 
and the ensuing contraversy.
Atwood's response is below (including his invitation to post this to V2020).
My original message is below his.
BL

Roy Atwood wrote:

>Dear Bill:
>
>Thank you for your letter from last Thursday. My statement, quoted
>accurately in the DN, was simply intended to correct the UI's Gary Michael
>and Brian Pitcher's misleading comment in their open letter, where they
>suggested that the Wilkin/Wilson booklet had been "distributed under the
>guise of an academic booklet." Neither Canon Press nor the authors made any
>claims, in the booklet itself or in any related promotions of it, about the
>booklet being an "academic" publication, such as a refereed or peer-reviewed
>monograph. Furthermore, the authors made no claims about being "professional
>historians" or "experts" or "authorities" in antebellum Southern history. In
>other words, I find no support for the Michael-Pitcher contention that the
>booklet was distributed in any deceptive "guise." I therefore believe that
>their comment is factually incorrect special pleading, unfair to the
>authors, and a disservice to wider community understanding.
>
>My comment implied no judgment, pro or con, about the historical accuracy of
>the booklet. To confirm or deny the historical accuracy of the booklet would
>take considerable scholarly effort. Sadly, many people have reacted
>emotively and negatively to the booklet's historical arguments and
>conclusions simply because its conclusions don't fit with the dominant
>paradigm or with their ideological prejudices. Vilifying a minority view
>merely because it is a minority view is just another form of bigotry akin to
>racist or religious bigotry. As evidenced in the local papers, a vocal
>minority of critics has rushed to link the authors to hate groups and all
>manner of evils, but never actually addressed the arguments of the booklet
>on historical grounds. Such reactions and shoot-first-aim-later accusations
>and ad hominem fallacies will not yield historical accuracy or a civil
>society.
>
>You ask if New Saint Andrews has considered repudiating the booklet as a
>means of ending this controversy? No, for two reasons. First, you of all
>people are aware that the animosity toward Doug Wilson, Christ Church, and
>New Saint Andrews College far predates the publication of this booklet
>(seven years ago), let alone its recent resurrection by a small group of
>people hoping to discredit them. For example, just this past summer, when
>the College voluntarily opened its doors and bathrooms to ALL for their
>convenience at Farmers Market, you used it as an opportunity to publicly
>denigrate the College for not being "part of the community." If you were
>willing to turn our act of kindness into an opportunity for left-handed
>compliments and nastiness, it seems unlikely that any repudiations of a
>7-year-old booklet would end the deep-seated animosity many, and that
>apparently includes you, have toward evangelical Christians who are
>unwilling to just keep quiet and stay out of the "public" arena. Repudiating
>a minority (opinion) just to appease the majority opinion (with some vague
>hope of ending the controversy?) would itself be another act of bigotry.
>
>And this connects to the second reason for not repudiating the booklet.
>Forty years ago, the Univeristy of Idaho fired faculty members for refusing
>to sign a loyalty oath during the McCarthy/Red Scare era. My old friend and
>colleague Pete Haggart actually got his job at the UI because his
>predecessor was fired for refusing to sign the loyalty oath nonsense. Calls
>for me, as an academic administrator, to "repudiate" a particular minority
>point of view of one of my faculty members sounds suspiciously like a new
>demand for a ideologically-based loyalty oath. I will neither bow to mob
>hysteria today nor heed calls to launch an ideological cleansing campaign
>just to prove the ideological purity of our institution to you or anyone
>else. Racial, ethnic, and ideological cleansing campaigns are all abhorent
>and just variant forms of bigotry. I will give no place or credence to any
>of them at New Saint Andrews as long as I am dean. In fact, let me now
>appeal to you, as someone who once encouraged open community dialogue among
>ALL Moscow voices on Vision2020, to reject any calls for an ideological
>purge of individuals in our community who happen to hold minority opinions,
>controversial or not.
>
>This controversy will not end, I believe, until those who are bitter,
>hateful and prejudiced toward outspoken Christian evangelicals recognize
>them and treat them like the fruitful, hard-working members of the Moscow
>community that they are. Yale law professor Stephen Carter described the
>current impass well, I think, in his widely read book, "The Culture of
>Disbelief" (Basic Books, 1993), when he observed that communities,
>especially academic communities, trivialize religious groups and presume
>that religious principles should give way to more "universally held"
>standards. Notre Dame history professor George Marsden makes a similar point
>in his book "The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship" (Oxford Univ.
>Press, 1997): "The fact is that, no matter what the subject, our dominant
>academic culture trains scholars to keep quiet about their faith as the
>price of full acceptance in that community." Marsden quotes political
>scientist John C. Green from a story in the New York Times: "If a professor
>talks about studying something from a Marxist point of view, others might
>disagree but not dismiss the notion. But if a professor proposed to study
>something from a Catholic or Protestant point of view, it would be treated
>like proposing something from a Martian point of view." Marsden goes on to
>note that "today nonreligious viewpoints hold the advantage in academia so
>that something very much like "secular humanism" is informally established
>as much as Christianity was in the 19th century." He concludes that "we
>should recognize that we are dealing with an over-correction and look for a
>way to restore a better balance among both religious and nonreligious
>voices." Trashing the public reputation a minority religious group is not
>the way to end controversy and restore civility to our academic community.
>
>Thank you for writing. Here's hoping that this controversy will end soon,
>that we'll see more light than heat from future discussions in our
>community.
>
>Roy Atwood
>
>(P.S.: Please feel free to post this on Vision2020 as you did your original
>letter)
>
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>-----Original Message-----
>From: bill london [mailto:london@moscow.com]
>Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 4:40 PM
>To: Vision2020; info@nsa.edu
>Subject: open letter to Roy Atwood
>
>For Roy Atwood, Dean of New St. Andrews College:
>
>In the Daily News yesterday (12/3/03, page 8A) you were quoted regarding
>
>the booklet (Southern Slavery: As it Was") written by Doug Wilson and
>Steve Wilkins:
>"This booklet was not published as a scholarly work."
>
>Does that mean that the booklet is historically inaccurate?
>Based upon the lack of scholarly precision in the booklet, has the
>administration of either New St. Andrews College or Christ Church
>considered repudiating the conclusions and perspective of the booklet as
>
>a means of ending this contraversy?
>BL
>
>.
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