Endorsement & Academic Freedom
Debates About Commencement Speakers & Student Groups Reveal a Double Standard
by John Garvey
This is the time of year when we begin to argue about commencement speakers. Every spring Catholic colleges attract attention for inviting (or disinviting) speakers whose messages are at odds with the teaching of the Catholic Church. This matter of honoring commencement speakers is a lot like another issue we wrestle with throughout the academic year—giving official recognition to student groups. Both issues touch on an institution's expression of its own identity. I'd like to offer some thoughts relevant to this year's inevitable round of debates.
COMMENCEMENT SPEAKERS
In spring 2012 there was a flap over Georgetown University's choice of Kathleen Sebelius to speak at the commencement of its Public Policy Institute. The Department of Health and Human Services, which Sebelius heads, had just announced that it would force Catholic colleges and universities to cover surgical sterilizations and prescription contraceptives, including some that may cause early-stage abortions, in the healthcare plans they offer to students and employees. The archbishop of Washington protested the invitation of Sebelius, as did some 27,000 people who signed a petition.
It was like the dispute in 2009 when Notre Dame invited President Obama to give its commencement speech and awarded him an honorary degree. Let me focus my attention on that one, because the facts are better known. The president is a strong supporter of abortion. As a state senator in Illinois, he opposed the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, intended to prevent the killing of infants who survived an abortion attempt. As a presidential candidate, he criticized the Supreme Court's decision in Gonzales v. Carhart, which upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. He wasn't in office as president for three days before he lifted restrictions on government funding for groups that provide abortion services or counseling abroad.
Giving the president an honorary degree seemed to be a tacit endorsement of these views by the university. Fr. John Jenkins, Notre Dame's president, disowned this meaning in his speech to the graduates. When he introduced Obama he said, "We are fully supportive of Church teaching on the sanctity of human life, and we oppose [the president's] policies on abortion and embryonic stem-cell research." But that did little to still the controversy. Bishop John D'Arcy of Fort Wayne–South Bend decided not to attend the graduation rather than suggest his approval of the president's policies, and 82 other bishops joined him in condemning Notre Dame for its action.
Invitations and Awards
Who was in the right there? Bishop D'Arcy's position was consistent with that taken by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in their 2004 statement Catholics in Political Life. That document, addressed principally to Catholic politicians, also has words of advice for Catholic institutions like Georgetown and Notre Dame. It says that such institutions "should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions."
This seems to say that Notre Dame's fault lay not in inviting the president to campus, but in giving him an honorary degree and a prestigious speaking platform. Inviting him to give the commencement address was quite different from, say, hosting him on some Wednesday in March to talk about the financial crisis, or even from inviting him to participate in a debate about the morality of embryonic stem-cell research or abortion. The bishops themselves would like to engage him on those points, and Notre Dame might render a useful service in playing host to such a disputation.
John Garvey is President of The Catholic University of America. In 2008 he was President of the Association of American Law Schools. He has practiced law with the firm of Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco, and taught at Notre Dame, Michigan, and Kentucky. He is the author or co-author of numerous books, including Religion and the Constitution (Aspen Publishers) and Sexuality and the U.S. Catholic Church (Crossroad).
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